West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee on Friday rejected a petition by a BJP legislatorseeking disqualification of Mukul Roy on the grounds that he defected to the Trinamool Congress from the BJP.
Mr. Roy, who contested and won from Krishangar Uttar on BJP ticket switched sides and joined the Trinamool a month after the Assembly election.He was appointed chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the State Assembly, a post usually reserved for a member of the Opposition benches.BJP MLA Ambika Roy had approached the Speaker seeking Mr. Mukul’s disqualification.
Later Mr. Ambika approached the Supreme Court over the development and alleged inordinate delays. The court directed the Speaker to take a decision.The Speaker told journaliststhat the petitioner had not been able to put the required “quality and weight of the evidence”. And in the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, hefelt that the petitioner had not been able to prove the contention in the petition.
The developments point out that claims made by the lawyers representing Mr. Mukul Roy before the Speaker that he is a BJP MLA stand valid.Mr. Mukul Roy had switched from the BJP to the Trinamool on June 11,2021, in the presence of party chairperson Mamata Banerjee.Several other elected MLAs of the BJP have followed the footsteps of Mr. Mukul Roy and joined the Trinamool in the past few months.
Between 2011 and 2021 almost three dozen MLAs who had either been elected on the ticket of the Congress or the Left partieshad joined the Trinamool and not a single MLA had been disqualified. Sources in the BJP said theparty was likely to challenge the Speaker’s decision in the court.
What has been interesting in the whole episode is Mr. Mukul Roy’s occasional slip of tongue where he was seen supporting the BJP.Trinamool leaders and Mr. Roy’s son Subranghshu Roy had blamed Mr. Mukul Roy’s failing health for such utterances.
Meanwhile, it appeared that not many in the Trinamool Congress were happy with the respite to the veteran leader.
“The CBI and the ED should arrest BJP leader Mukul Roy in Saradha and Narada cases. I have already sent them a letter praying for joint interrogation with him. He is an influential conspirator. He has used different parties only for his personal protection. Mukul Roy should not be spared,” Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said on Twitter. Mr. Ghosh, a former Rajya Sabha member, had spent about three years in prison for his alleged role in the Saradha scam.
