Dhankhar unable to deliver speech in Assembly as BJP creates bedlam

Kolkata, March 7 (IANS) West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar failed to deliver his budget speech in the Assembly on Monday following continuous protests by the MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP MLAs, led by Suvendu Adhikhari, were protesting against the violence during the recently-concluded civic polls.

Dhankhar, who arrived at the Assembly at 2 p.m. to deliver the inaugural address, could not do it as BJP legislators, carrying posters and photographs of alleged victims of civic poll violence, came down to the well of the house to stage a protest.

The Governor requested the BJP MLAs to let the proceedings begin but they remained adamant, and raised 'Jai Shri Ram' and 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' slogans.

As the Governor was about to leave the House, ruling party MLAs including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee requested him to stay, following which Dhankhar again urged the BJP lawmakers to calm down but it was in vain as the BJP MLAs started giving slogans with a renewed vigour.

However, Dhankhar read the first and the last line of the budget speech and left the Assembly.

Chief Minister Banerjee termed the BJP MLAs' protest as a "shame for democracy".

"What the BJP did today in the Bengal Assembly is a shame for democracy. We urged the Governor to read at least one line from his speech and table it in the House, he accepted our request," she said. "BJP wanted to create a constitutional crisis," she added.

Later in the day the Governor asked both BJP and Trinamool Congress to go for "self-introspection".

"This kind of thing is not good for democracy and it would have been better if it didn't happen," he said, also alleging the ruling Trinamool Congress of physically and verbally obstructing him.