West Bengal: Assembly speaker dials Vice-President Dhankhar over swearing in impasse

Kolkata, Jun 28 (PTI) West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee has sought Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar's intervention to resolve the impasse concerning the oath-taking ceremony of two newly elected TMC MLAs.

The row over the venue for the swearing in ceremony of the two newly elected TMC MLAs intensified on Thursday after Banerjee wrote to President Droupadi Murmu seeking her help to resolve the deadlock even as the legislators refused to take oath at Raj Bhavan as directed by Governor CV Ananda Bose and staged a dharna in the assembly complex.

"Last night I called up Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar and requested him to look into the matter. I also informed him that I had also written to President Droupadi Murmu regarding the issue. What is happening regarding the swearing-in of the MLAs is unacceptable," he told PTI.

Dhankhar was Governor of West Bengal from July 2019- July 2022.

Meanwhile, Baranagar MLA Sayantika Bandyopadhyay and Bhagabangola MLA Rayat Hossain Sarkar on Friday resumed their dharna for the second consecutive day before the BR Ambedkar statue in West Bengal Vidhan Sabha complex demanding that Bose enable them to perform their duties as legislators by facilitating the oath-taking ceremony in the assembly.

The governor had invited the two MLAs, who were elected in the recent bypolls, to take the oath in the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday. However, they declined the invitation, claiming that convention dictates that in the case of poll winners, the governor assigns the speaker or the deputy speaker to administer the oath. PTI