The minister for water resources investigation and development, Manas Bhunia, on Monday moved a special notice in the Assembly, expressing concern at chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s mike being “switched off” while she was speaking at the Niti Aayog meeting in New Delhi on Saturday.

Speaker Biman Banerjee allowed the special notice by suspending the question-and-answer session considering the gravity and the seriousness of the matter.

The notice comes a couple of days after Mamata walked out of the Niti Aayog meeting complaining that she was allowed to speak for only five minutes while chief ministers of BJP-ruled states spoke for 15-20 minutes.

“She was the only chief minister attending the meeting from the Opposition side and spoke about the discrimination in the Union budget against Bengal and other Opposition-governed states. She also raised the issue of non-allocation of funds towards the welfare schemes of states. Other small states spoke for 14-20 minutes but our chief minister was only allowed to speak for five minutes and her microphone was switched off in an attempt to stifle the voice of the Opposition which is a great humiliation faced by her,” Bhunia mentioned in his special notice.

“This House expresses its anguish over the matter for the treatment inflicted on the leader of the House, which doesn’t advance the cause of cooperative federalism in any manner. Moreover, it can also be viewed as an attempt to muzzle all divergent viewpoints, which are the very essence of an open democracy as celebrated in our Constitution,” he added.

Later in the day, Mamata endorsed the notice and said: “Chandrababu Naidu was allowed to speak for 20-25 minutes and when I started to speak, they started pressing the bell after five minutes. I shall not go to the meeting of Niti Aayog.”

However, BJP legislators opposed the notice, arguing that it violated Assembly protocol as it was based on the chief minister’s statement to the media that contradicted the official Niti Aayog version.

“We can discuss the official version of Niti Aayog but not the chief minister’s statement made to the media outside the House. Previously many notices on issues outside the Assembly have been rejected before as they were not part of the proceedings. Additionally, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman clarified that what chief minister Mamata Banerjee said was not true,” BJP chief whip Shankar Ghosh said.

Ghosh was referring to the statement made by Sitaraman where she said the Bengal chief minister was trying to build her narrative on falsehood.

The BJP legislators started raising slogans inside the House and staged a walkout in protest.

Speaker Banerjee, reacting to the approach of the BJP legislators, said: “The chief minister is the leader of the House. If she is obstructed then there will be a protest. I wanted to give everybody a fair chance but this is very unfortunate.”

“I know my powers. If needed I have the power to move a privilege motion against it,” the Speaker added.

Minister of state for finance (independent charge) Chandrima Bhattacharya, state urban development minister Frihad Hakim and state parliamentary affairs minister Sobhandeb Chattopdhyaya also expressed concern over the way the chief minister was treated at the Niti Aayog meeting.