Eight BJP MLAs, who became chairman of eight Assembly committes, will resign tomorrow to protest Mukul Roy’s appointment as Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari will then lead the delegation of saffron camp lawmakers to meet Governor Jagdeep Dhankar to apprise him how the rights of the Opposition MLAs are being disregarded in the House.
Speaker Biman Banerjee had on Friday announced Roy as the chairman of the PAC which was met with vehement protests and even Adhikari had announced that BJP MLAs will stay away from all committees of the House.
They even alleged that the Speaker circumvented norms of the House by appointing Roy as PAC chairman which should have been assumed by a member of the opposition. On the other hand BJP MLAs questioned how Roy, who had rejoined TMC, is being regarded as member of the ruling party although he hasn’t resigned from BJP and won the Assembly election as BJP’s Krishnagar north constituency candidate.
The eight BJP MLAs have also drafted their resignation letters. A meeting will be held tomorrow with Adhikari and BJP MLAs regarding the issue but they will not resign as members of these committees.
Meanwhile, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh, who went Delhi to meet party chief JP Nadda, today after being summoned to discuss “urgent party matter”, said that party will no more tolerate anti-party statements on social media.
“Party leaders must refrain from comments on social media which will be treated as anti-party activities,” said Ghosh. In the past few days, BJP had faced embarrassment after MP and Bharatiya Jana Yuva Morcha’s Bengal unit president Saumitra Khan resigned and then withdrew but lambasted Adhikari and Ghosh on Facebooklive.
Rajib Banerjee, Sabyasachi Dutta, Babul Supriyo’s comments also triggered controversy as questions were raised over their credibility for hurting party’s image. The saffron party feels these leaders’ activities are dampening the spirit of grassroot workers, especially before the impending civic body elections and amid alleged unabated post-poll violence across the state.