The second round of the West Bengal Assembly’s Budget session, set to begin on March 10, is expected to be quite stormy over several issues, including the Jadavpur University crisis.
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during the presentation of the State Budget 2024-25 at the Legislative Assembly in Kolkata on Wednesday, February 12, 2025. (Photo: IANS/Kuntal Chakrabarty)
The second round of the West Bengal Assembly’s Budget session, set to begin on March 10, is expected to be quite stormy over several issues, including the Jadavpur University crisis.
One of the major issues is the crisis at Jadavpur University in Kolkata over the ruckus within the varsity campus on March 1 in which two students were severely injured and hospitalised after being “allegedly and deliberately” hit by the vehicle of the West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu.
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The BJP legislators, led by the party’s chief whip in the Assembly, Shankar Ghosh, are gearing up to confront the state education minister on the issue in the House.
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However, the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, and three other BJP legislators will not be able to participate in the proceedings of the House since they were suspended for a month during the first round of the Budget session last month.
As per the schedule fixed so far, budgetary allocations for only a few state government departments namely education, health, power, labour, panchayat affairs and rural development, municipal affairs and urban development are scheduled to come up for discussions in the second round of the Budget session.
The second issue is that the discussion on budgetary allocations for crucial state government departments, including the home department, is not listed.
The budgetary allocations for the remaining state government will be put to guillotine which means passing them without any discussion on them on the floor of the House.
The opposition BJP had alleged that deliberately the state home department, which includes the police department, had been kept out of the purview of discussion since in that case, the treasury bench would have to face several uncomfortable questions.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is herself in charge of the state home department.
The second phase of the state Budget session will end on March 19.
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