The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal will place a resolution in the upcoming session of the legislative assembly against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and other federal agencies, saying that these are being used by the Centre to harass the state governments, parliamentary affairs minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said on Monday.
“Bengal is the first state to bring such a resolution. The CBI, ED, Income Tax department and other agencies are exceeding their defined roles. They are being used by the Centre to harass non-BJP governments in various states. Bengal has become their target. We want to place this on record. The Opposition BJP may take part in the discussion on the resolution if it wants to,” Chattopadhyay said.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet colleagues - several of whom are suspects in high-profile cases being probed by CBI and ED- have upped the ante against the Centre ever since former minister Partha Chatterjee and TMC’s Birbhum district unit president Anubrata Mondal were arrested in the job scam and cattle smuggling cases on July 23 and August 11 respectively. Minister and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim and former minister Subrata Mukherjee were arrested in May 2021 in the Narada case.
The coming session of the Bengal assembly will commence on September 14 and the resolution will be placed before the House on September 19, Chattopadhyay said after TMC legislators met Speaker Biman Banerjee to inform him about their decision.
{{/usCountry}}The coming session of the Bengal assembly will commence on September 14 and the resolution will be placed before the House on September 19, Chattopadhyay said after TMC legislators met Speaker Biman Banerjee to inform him about their decision.
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The resolution will be drafted and placed before the assembly’s business affairs committee on September 16, the speaker said.
This is not the first time the TMC will be making a move at the state legislature on a controversial issue.
On June 13, the assembly passed the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill 2022 which seeks to make the chief minister the chancellor of all state-aided universities in place of the governor which has been the norm for more than a century. This was seen as a move to strip former governor Jagdeep Dhankhar of his powers amid a tussle between him and the TMC government over a series of issues.
Dhankhar sent the bill back to the assembly in July, seeking some clarifications, before being elected Vice President of India.
In January, the TMC also decided to place a Substantive Motion in the Rajya Sabha criticising Dhankhar’s actions but this was not allowed.
On November 16 last year, the assembly passed a resolution against the Centre’s decision to extend the jurisdiction of the Border Security Force (BSF) from 15 to 50 km of the international border in the state. The assembly witnessed noisy scenes as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members opposed the move saying the Centre’s decision to amend the BSF Act and extend the paramilitary force’s jurisdiction by 35 km from the borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh in Punjab, West Bengal and Assam was meant to tighten security.
The Punjab assembly passed a resolution against the Centre’s notification before Bengal made the move.
In the 294-member Bengal assembly, the TMC has 217 members while the BJP has 77 but five of these legislators have joined the TMC without resigning from the BJP. The Congress and the Left parties could not win any seat in the 2011 assembly elections.
Bengal BJP chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said the move to pass a resolution against federal agencies is an indicator of the TMC’s disregard for the nation’s laws.
“While it is apparent that back-to-back arrests of TMC leaders have panicked Mamata Banerjee, the decision to pass a resolution in the assembly shows that she has no regard for the nation’s laws and federal structure. She thinks Bengal is an independent country, not a part of India,” said Bhattacharya.