All-party meeting in Bengal Assembly: several BJP MLAs present, but Suvendu Adhikary absent

Several MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were present at the all-party meeting scheduled at the West Bengal Legislative Assembly on Monday. The leader of Opposition – Suvendu Adhikary – however, was conspicuous by his absence from this meeting.

The Trinamool Congress and the BJP have been engaged in a war of words over the appointment of the chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). While it was being speculated that the BJP members may boycott the meeting, several MLAs had turned up. But Adhikary’s absence from this meeting is being seen as significant.

Chandrima Bhattacharya, Partha Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Sujit Basu, Aroop Biswas, Nirmal Ghosh, Jyotipriya Mullick, Partha Bhowmick, Sandhyarani Tudu were present among others at the meeting on behalf of Trinamool Congress in the chamber of Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay. BJP MLAs included Manoj Tigga, Sudip Mukherjee, Agnimitra Paul, Tapasi Mondol, Mihir Goswami, Ambika Roy and so on.

Mukul Roy – the elected MLA from Krishnagar Uttar seat – has submitted his nomination for the post of the PAC chairperson. The list of 20 members includes his name. However, the controversy has been centred around the fact that though he was elected from as a BJP member, he later joined the Trinamool Congress. The BJP has objected to this, and the party authorities have said that anti-defection law should be implemented so that he no longer remains an MLA. Suvendu Adhikary has moved the proposal before the Speaker already.