BJP Files No-Confidence Motion Against Bengal Assembly Speaker

The BJP on Thursday filed a no-confidence motion against Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay in the West Bengal Assembly.

The proposal signed by as many as 50 BJP legislators was handed over to the Assembly secretary, Sukumar Roy in the afternoon. A team of BJP MLAs led by the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari went to the office of Sukumar Ray and handed over the proposal.

Last year too, BJP's legislative team moved a similar no-confidence motion against the Speaker on the floor of the House and sought discussion on the matter. However, then, the motion was not admitted by the Speaker.

BJP insiders said that in the proposal handed over to the Assembly secretary, the party's legislative team has highlighted 18 points on why Bandopadhyay should be removed as the Speaker of the House.

The main allegation is that any motion moved by the opposition, however of public interest that might be, is always dismissed by the Speaker. The BJP accused the Speaker of allowing the ruling Trinamool Congress legislators to move many motions even though their subjects were not directly related to the Assembly proceedings.

Later speaking to the media persons, Adhikari said that the Speaker was violating the constitutional provisions by all means. "He is acting on behalf of a particular political party sitting on the Chair of the Speaker which is supposed to be unbiased. He is always trying to suppress the voices of the opposition. He does not allow us to speak on crucial issues on the floor of the House. So we have submitted a no-confidence motion against him to the Assembly secretary," Adhikari said.

Trinamool Congress leadership ridiculed this move of BJP and claimed that the LoP was resorting to such gimmicks just to maintain his own as well as his party's relevance.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)