Suvendu Adhikari moves Calcutta HC seeking dismissal of Mukul Roy as an MLA
Mukul Roy had defected to Trinamool Congress months after winning the Krishnanagar Uttar constituency in the West Bengal Assembly elections on a BJP ticket.
Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Suvendu Adhikari on Monday filed a plea in the Calcutta High Court seeking Mukul Roy’s disqualification from the West Bengal Assembly, ANI reported.
In June, Roy had defected to the Trinamool Congress months after winning the Krishnanagar Uttar constituency in the West Bengal Assembly elections on a BJP ticket.
Roy was one of the earliest members of the Trinamool Congress when it was founded in 1997 but joined the BJP in 2017. However, soon after the Trinamool Congress returned to power in the state in May, Roy came back to his old party.
The BJP has been demanding Roy’s disqualification as a legislator since he was made the chairman of the public accounts committee of the West Bengal Assembly in July. The public accounts committee audits the revenue and expenditure of the government. The rules mandate that the panel should be headed by a legislator of the main Opposition party.
“We have waited for four months and participated in four hearings [in Assembly],” Adhikari said, according to India Today. “We have come to ask for Mukul Roy’s membership to be cancelled. We cited a Supreme Court judgement [in the petition].”
Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, had objected to Roy’s appointment in July also. In a memorandum to the West Bengal governor, he had said that Roy could not be considered a BJP MLA since he has quit the party.
Earlier in June, Adhikari had written to West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee seeking disqualification of Roy from the House under the anti-defection law.
On Monday, Adhikari alleged that the the anti-defection law was not being used in West Bengal even as “more than 50 MLAs” have defected in the state.
Earlier this month, the West Bengal unit of the BJP had issued legal notices to two of its MLAs, Tanmoy Ghosh and Biswajit Das, who joined the Trinamool Congress.