Kolkata, Feb 7 (PTI) West Bengal assembly Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay on Wednesday asked the members to be present during proceedings in the House, particularly when ministers rose to reply to their queries.
Bandyopadhyay's request comes after senior TMC MLA and agriculture minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay got outraged by the absence of three BJP MLAs in the House during his replies to the questions asked by the opposition legislators earlier.
Chattopadhyay was fuming when he found that the MLAs were absent. "Speaker Sir, please note this," he said.
The minister claimed that the three BJP MLAs were not in their seats when he rose to speak.
"This is unfortunate. MLAs should be present when a minister is giving a reply to your questions," the Speaker pointed out.
The opposition BJP seemed to be "more interested in organising noisy demonstrations on the floor of the House with placards and outside the assembly hall but most of them seldom sit through the proceedings", the minister told reporters later in the day.
He also said. "I have been a legislator for 33 years. Many a time I have been in the opposition. But I had never seen such an opposition like the BJP legislators in the assembly. Even the leader of the opposition is mostly absent in important discussions on finance and others." Chattopadhyay, also the parliamentary affairs, minister, alleged that the BJP MLAs were "only interested in gimmicks".
BJP legislator Agnimitra Paul said the minister's statement is "unfortunate" and "not true". PTI SUS BDC
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