The Congress and the Left Front on Tuesday staged a walkout from the Assembly after minister of state for parliamentary affairs Tapas Roy allegedly insulted the Opposition over protests against the absence of all but a handful of ministers from the House.

When proceedings of the House began for the second half at 1.30pm to start a discussion on the governor’s address, 40-odd members of the Congress and the Left Front demanded the attendance of more ministers than the three who were present then.

As the likes of the Congress’s Behrampore MLA Manoj Chakraborty protested, minister of state Roy entered the House while on his cellphone and spoke disrespectfully to Chakraborty and others.

When Chakraborty objected, Roy rushed towards the Opposition benches aggressively.

“All we had asked for was the presence of more ministers during the proceedings. The kind of attendance we saw today was not the first such instance. It is an insult to the Opposition and indicative of the treasury benches’ utter disregard for parliamentary democracy,” Chakraborty, the Congress’s chief whip in the House, told a news conference later.

“There is a basic decency. He was rolling up his sleeves because I had asked him to get off the phone inside the House. Would he have hit us? On the floor of the House?” he asked.

Speaker Biman Banerjee took exception to the incident and called it “inappropriate”. even as Roy refused to issue an apology in conformity with the demands of the Congress and the Left legislature parties.

Soon after, the non-BJP Opposition staged the walkout, which led to a dharna at the base of the B.R. Ambedkar statue on the Assembly premises.

Both the sides decided to reconcile at a meeting in Banerjee’s chamber.

“After the Speaker expressed his grief at how untoward the situation was, both sides apologised to him and decided on an amicable resolution,” said a source in the Trinamul legislature party.

After the meeting, the Congress and the Left members returned to the House at parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee’s request.

“What happened was not correct and should not recur,” said Chatterjee, also Trinamul Congress secretary-general.