As the ruling Trinamool Congress on Wednesday tried to muscle its way through a feisty resistance put up by the Bengal Opposition parties in its bid to enact the controversial West Bengal Prevention of Defacement of Property Act the State Assembly witnessed absolute bedlam with rival members engaging each other with brute force packing in the process Opposition leader Abdul Mannan to hospital with severe heart condition.
Several MlAs including women members and marshals were injured while the Opposition left and Congress protested the tabling of “draconian laws” by donning paper aprons depicting stills from a 2006 incident when a band of Trinamool MlAs led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee vandalised State Assembly damaging properties including antique assets worth lakhs.
Mannan was admitted to the ICCU at State-run SSKM Hospital with heart condition and needed “immediate installation of temporary pacemaker.”
He also sustained external injuries doctors attending on him said even a combined team of Opposition parties sought time from Governor KN Tripathi seeking his intervention. Even as the Opposition decided to boycott the House the Government passed the West Bengal Prevention of Defacement of Property Act that seeks to penalize the rioters financially as well as with imprisonment upto seven years for damaging Government or other properties.
The Bill also seeks to punish the people of an area collectively if they host or shield the rioters or their leaders. The recent farmers’ unrest where a dozen police vehicles were burnt down was the immediate trigger behind the Bill as soon after the incident Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee threatened to bring penal laws to prevent vandalism.
Notwithstanding, the content of the Act the Opposition wondered why Banerjee had still not apologised for what her party had done at Nandigram, Singur and lalgarh or for that matter why did her party not compensate for the damages done to the Assembly House in 2006 when TMC MlAs led by her raided the House destroying large number of heritage furniture.
When Mannan or other MlAs refused to put off the aprons depicting 2006 pictures the Opposition leader was suspended for two days. “While he refused to leave the House the marshals and TMC MlAs attacked him and the Opposition MlAs” said CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakrabarty adding “this was the blackest day in the history of Bengal Assembly.”
The combined Opposition said they would launch a sustained struggle against the “Black laws that gags people’s voice,” adding the State would burn if the draconian law was not taken back.