Trinamool Congress to take strict action against MLAs missing during crucial debates in Assembly

Kolkata, Sep 21 (IANS) The Trinamool Congress has decided to take strict action against MLAs, who were missing during the last two crucial sessions of the West Bengal Assembly without reasonable grounds and without intimating the chief whip of the party. 

The party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, will herself, initiate disciplinary actions against such erring legislators in future.

A decision on this count was taken by the inter-disciplinary committee of the party at a meeting on late Wednesday evening, which was presided over by the state Parliamentary Affairs and Agriculture minister, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, party insiders said.

Also present in the meeting were state finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, state power minister Aroop Biswas and Kolkata Mayor and state municipal affairs & urban development minister Firhad Hakim, among others.

Party insiders said that the chief minister got especially irked by the absence of several party legislators when the debate on the crucial motion of declaring Bengali New Year’s Day as the Statehood Day for West Bengal.

"The chief minister noted with ire that 167 of the 216 party legislators were present during that debate," said a member of the state cabinet. 

He also said that while five legislators were absent on reasonable grounds like medical emergencies and that too after intimating the leadership, the rest just skipped without citing any reason or even taking the concurrence of the party’s legislative team.

According to the State Parliamentary Affairs minister, it is unfortunate that often legislators come, sign the registrars and just leave without participating in the debate. "As elected legislators they are supposed to highlight the problems of the voters in their respective areas on the floor of the Assembly and participate in a discussion in it. This will not be tolerated anymore," he said.