Kolkata: Pandemonium inside the august House isn’t a new phenomenon.
But when ruckus inside a state assembly grabs eyeballs nationally, then you are bound to read between the lines – the line of parliamentary ethics is crossed.
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Who to blame?
On Thursday, one piece of news that still is the cynosure is the bedlam in the West Bengal Assembly.
The acrimony between the ruling TMC and the main Opposition BJP isn’t breaking news.
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But when violence supersedes discipline, there are worries galore.
The trigger?
A debate on Mamata Banerjee government’s resolution on alleged atrocities against Bengali migrants opened a can of worms.
Here we go – Mamata gears up to address and the saffron members go hammer and tongs grilling the government on the suspension of the Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on September 2.
Speaker Biman Banerjee cracks the whip on BJP chief whip Shankar Ghosh.
Ghosh refuses to budge and assembly marshals use coercion to drag him out of the House.
Ghosh’s colleague Agnimitra Paul too faces the Speaker’s ire and women marshals step in.
BJP’s Mihir Goswami, Ashok Dinda and Bankim Ghosh were also suspended.
Allegations and counter allegations fly hard and high – BJP mourns the death of democracy in the state.
The firebrand CM retaliates, “A time will soon come when not a single BJP MLA will remain in Bengal. The people themselves will ensure it. BJP will face inevitable defeat, for no party that wages linguistic terror against Bengalis can ever win Bengal.”
Mamata also castigates BJP for its ‘hatred’ towards Bengali language, the poor, SCs and Hindus.
And she minces no words while calling BJP Vote Stealers.
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“BJP is a party of vote-chors, corrupt to the core, persecutors of Bengalis, and masters of deception. BJP is a national disgrace, and I condemn them in the strongest terms… We saw in Parliament how the BJP used CISF to harass our MPs,” she says.
Social Media is full of videos showing scuffle and injured saffron MLAs being carried out of the Assembly.
Here’s one more video.
Adhikari seizes the opportunity to attack Mamata as he takes on her former boss Mamata.
“Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was convicted for insulting the entire Modi Community by making the remarks – “In sab choron ke naam Modi, Modi, Modi, Kyun hai?” The Hon’ble Court held him guilty of criminal defamation as he had defamed the entire Modi Community. Today, when our state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee raises the same “Modi Chor” slogan in the Legislative Assembly, why no action would be taken against her? She has committed the same offense, insulting an entire Community. The Speaker should have initiated action against her, especially when there is such precedent, but he didn’t, neither did he tried to stop her from uttering such hateful slurs. We will not accept this insult and will see it through to the end…,” he tweets.
And the omnipresent political slugfest continues on its way to the zenith.
But those voters who look to these leaders through their thick and thin – are they amused or bemused?
That is the million-dollar question.