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BJP, TMC face off over Mukul Roy’s induction in public accounts committee
The West Bengal assembly has 41 committees and among them the PAC, which works as the audit watchdog for the house is considered the most important one.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday got involved in a tussle when Mukul Roy, who left the saffron camp and returned to the ruling party on June 11, filed his nomination for induction in the public accounts committee (PAC) of the West Bengal legislative assembly.
The Bengal assembly has 41 committees and among them the PAC, which works as the audit watchdog for the assembly is considered the most important one.
On June 18, the BJP submitted a petition before assembly speaker Biman Banerjee, saying Roy, the legislator from Kishnanagar North constituency in Nadia district, should be disqualified under the anti-defection law as he did not resign from the BJP before switching sides.
The decision to disqualify a member is taken only by the speaker. The Constitution does not specify any time frame for the process which involves inquiry and setting up of a committee.
Since a leader from the opposition is conventionally made chairman of the PAC, Roy, 67, stoked speculations that he may get the post because of his seniority although the much younger former cabinet minister and chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s protege-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari, who joined the BJP in December last year, is the leader of the opposition in the assembly.
Roy, who joined the BJP in 2017 and became the party’s national vice-president, returned to the TMC along with his son Subhranshu, a former MLA.
According to rules, it is the discretion of the speaker to select the chairpersons of the various committees in the assembly. The BJP wants Ashok Lahiri, the former chief economic adviser to the Government of India who won the Balurghat seat in north Bengal, to be the PAC chairman.
“Six BJP MLAs have filed their nomination for the PAC. Nominations have been filed for other committees as well. It seems elections will be held in four committees as the number of candidates exceeds the strength of these committees. Elections for these posts were never held in the past as the candidatures were amicably decided through discussion,” the speaker said.
“My mission is to ensure that Roy is disqualified. He will not remain an MLA so the question of him becoming the PAC chairman does not arise. However, we will wait for the decision of the speaker,” said Adhikari.
“If the speaker decides that someone from the ruling party will head the PAC there is nothing we can do although opposition leaders usually get the post,” said Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh.
“Adhikari does not know the rules of the assembly. It is the speaker who decides who gets these posts,” said senior TMC legislator Tapas Roy.
Since the Congress and the Left parties could not win a single seat in the recent state polls, the 213 TMC MLAs and the 75 BJP MLAs can claim membership of the various committees. The BJP had bagged 77 seats but two MLAs resigned from the assembly to retain their Lok Sabha seats.
By-polls will be held in seven constituencies. Mamata Banerjee, who was defeated by Adhikari in Nandigram, will contest again from Bhawanipore, her old seat in south Kolkata. The seat was vacated by minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay who will also contest again.
