The Hindu : Trinamool suspends MLA

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 01, 2003

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Trinamool suspends MLA

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA JUNE 30. The Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, today used a handpicked party committee to muzzle a prominent MLA for daring to question her act. Deepak Ghosh, a former bureaucrat and Trinamool MLA from Mahishadal in South 24-Parganas, was suspended by the party's disciplinary committee for questioning Ms. Banerjee's decision to boycott the budget session of the West Bengal Assembly.

The disciplinary committee made up of Biman Banerjee, Mukul Roy, Partha Chatterjee and Subrata Bakshi met after they received a reply from Mr. Ghosh in response to the suspension notice served on him on Saturday.

Mr. Partha Chatterjee said the legislature party had also informed the Speaker of the decision on Mr. Ghosh. "It is now up to Mr. Ghosh to conduct himself in tune with the situation. It is left to him whether or not he should attend the Assembly proceedings."

Meanwhile, Mr. Ghosh reaffirmed that he had violated no norms in seeking an explanation from Ms. Banerjee on the decision to boycott the Assembly because he felt that the MLAs had been elected by the people to articulate their problems and grievances in the highest body.

"There is no democracy in Trinamool now. If anything, a penchant for self-destruction is increasingly becoming evident," he said.

Political circles saw the suspension as Ms. Banerjee's signal to the anti-boycott MLAs that she would not tolerate any resistance to her decisions.

According to reports, several MLAs were planning to forge a pressure group to counter Ms. Banerjee's unilateral act in running the legislature party.

One view was that Mr. Ghosh and like-minded MLAs might be pursued by Sudip Bandopadhyay, MP, who is allegedly trying to build inner-party resistance against Ms. Banerjee, blaming her for his failure to make it to the Union Cabinet during the last reshuffle.

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