West Bengal speaker to decide fate of TMC rebel
The Supreme Court has for the time being left it on the Bengal Assembly Speaker, Rathin Bose, to decide on the petitions seeking the disqualification of 10 rebel TMC MLAs.
The Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana left it on the Speaker to take a decision by October 10, stating the three-month deadline fixed by the Court in the matter would expire on October 10.
The petition was filed by pro-Mamata Banerjee MLA and former minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, who sought an early decision on the disqualification petitions. Recently the Election Commission of India froze the name and the symbol of the All India Trinamool Congress for the time being, bifurcating the party into two—Mamata Al India Trinamool Congress allotting it a football player as a symbol and the Democratic Trinamool Congress allotting it an envelope.
With the present orders of the ECI and the Apex Court, both groups of the TMC were likely to contest the coming civic elections in the state as per the temporary arrangement made by the poll panel.
The Trinamool Congress split up into two parts after Mamata Banerjee’s party was defeated by the BJP in the April-May Assembly elections this year.
While BJP won 208 seats, TMC won 80. Out of these, about 60 MLAs left Mamata Banerjee and formed a parallel group led by present Opposition Leader Ritabrata Banerjee.
