ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

West Bengal assembly goes one up on UP

Bedlam marred the opening day of the budget session of the West Bengal assembly today as Opposition Congress members went on a rampage, heckling Governor K V Raghunatha Reddy, tearing up copies of his address and forcing him to leave the House without finishing the speech.

A section of the members, protesting against the "made-up" speech and demanding reopening of a closed unit of Dunlop India Limited, surged towards Reddy, snatched away the speech from his hand and kept shouting and interrupting the address all through.

The governor was forced to abandon the address midway within a few minutes and leave the House.

As soon as Reddy began reading out his speech, Congress member Rabin Mukherjee went up to him and snatched away his speech. The MLA then thrust a leaflet into the governor's hands and asked him to read it out instead.

The Congress MLA was joined by several party colleagues who, shouting 'Vande Mataram', tore apart copies of the speech and flung them at the governor.

Apart from Rabin Mukherjee, Congress MLA Tapas Banerjee, Ramjanam Majhi, Sudhir Bhattacharyya and Dilip Das were seen rushing towards the governor.

A few Congress MLAs were also seen climbing on to the assembly secretary's desk and gesticulating furiously.

After the governor left the house, Congress Legislature Party leader Atish Sinha told newsmen in his chamber that he neither endorsed nor opposed the behaviour of a section of his party men. He claimed the agitation was not pre-planned but was only a natural outburst of grievances against closure of factories in the state and the ruling Left Front's policies.

Speaker Hasim Abdul Halim told newspersons that the behaviour of the Congress legislators was unconstitutional and meaningless. Asked whether he was contemplating disciplinary action, the speaker said it was upto the CLP to control its members. The speaker observed that the incident proved that the senior members of the CLP either failed to control their juniors or they had lent tacit support.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report