Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari on Friday said the BJP was preparing to move court with an appeal to implement the anti-defection law against Mukul Roy, who had switched to the Trinamul Congress after being elected as an MLA on the lotus symbol.
Adhikari said the BJP would also urge the court to set a deadline for the Speaker of the Bengal Assembly to conclude the hearing on his application for Roy’s disqualification.
On the basis of Adhikari’s appeal, Speaker Biman Banerjee called for the first hearing on Friday. Adhikari and two other BJP MLAs, Ambika Roy and Sudip Mukherjee, attended the hearing, which lasted for hardly four minutes.
A source said Banerjee had pointed out some technical faults and asked Adhikari to return with a rectified application on July 30. The source added the “technical anomalies” could’ve been overlooked and by pointing them out, Banerjee was trying to delay the process.
On the basis of this assumption and “past experiences”, the BJP has decided to move court.
“We have no faith in the system run by the Trinamul Congress…We will speak to the legal cell of the BJP and senior lawyers and we will take refuge in court… We will request the court to implement the anti-defection law in Bengal…And if a hearing (in the Assembly) is to be conducted, the court must fix a deadline for its completion…,” Adhikari told journalists after the hearing.
He added since there was documented proof available and Roy had been elected as the PAC chairman with support from Trinamul, there mustn’t be much “lingering” on the issue. “We have seen when the Left legislative party had complained about Dipali Biswas switching to Trinamul, 23 hearings were held…But it was never concluded. Hence, we don’t trust this system,” Adhikari said.
Incidentally, Adhikari is said to have played a key role in the defection of Biswas from the CPM to Trinamul in 2018. She later switched to the BJP, yet again with Adhikari’s help, in 2020. She had won from the Gazole seat in 2016.
Sunil Mondal, the MP from Burdwan East seat, told this newspaper that he was not a member of BJP. Mondal had switched from Trinamul to the BJP in December 2020 along with Adhikari. However, after the Assembly poll debacle for the BJP, he reportedly fell out with the Nandigram MLA.
“I’m still a Trinamul MP. I don’t have a single document that can prove that I’m a BJP member, because I’m not. Neither am I an office-bearer of the BJP,” Mondal said.
Trinamul had recently expedited the process of implementing the anti-defection law against Mondal and Sisir Adhikari, Suvendu’s father, who had switched to the BJP.
Both of them were sent notices on Thursday asking them to explain why the law shouldn’t be implemented against them.
In such a circumstance, Mondal claimed that he remained a Trinamul MP.
Allocation of posts
Partha Chatterjee, the minister for parliamentary affairs, announced the names of the chairpersons of eight Assembly standing committees from which BJP MLAs had resigned. He named Sudipto Roy, Humayun Kabir, Pannalal Halder, Abdul Khalek Mollah, Rukbanur Rehman, Tapan Dasgupta, Ashok Chattopadhyay and Madan Mitra as the new chairmen of these committees. The Standing Committees will meet from July 26.
