Kolkata: The West Bengal Assembly witnessed uproarious scenes on Thursday as Left Front members staged a noisy walkout accusing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of deliberately ignoring the house on the developments in the proposed Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).
The opposition had on Monday demanded a statement on the "fact verification committee" set up by the state government to examine the factual aspects of the report submitted by a high powered committee on the inclusion of additional areas into the GTA - a new development body proposed to run the administration in the north Bengal hills.
During the question hour, senior Communist Party of India-Marxist(CPI-M) lawmaker Anisur Rehman asked when Mamata would make a statement before the house on the issue.
Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay said he he will speak to Mamata, but thatdid not satisfy the opposition members, who left their seats and surrounded his podium. Later they walked out of the House raising slogans.
"The chief minister is ignoring the proceedings of the House deliberately by keeping herself away from the state assembly. It is the privilege of the House and its members that they should be informed of such an important development but she has not answered a single question so far," Rehman told media persons later.
Subhas Naskar, of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), criticising Bandyopadhyay, said: "As Speaker, he should direct the ministers to give statements but it seems the ministers are above him."
The opposition later rejoined the proceedings after a meeting with Bandyopadhyay who assured them that Mamata will be present in the house on Friday.
Mamata had on Saturday announced the formation of a three-member fact verification panel to look into the recommendations of a high-powered committee after the pro-Gorkhaland Gorkha Janmukti Morcha rejected the committee's report and threatened to launch an agitation.
The committee was set up July 29, 2011 after the GJM demanded 398 additional mouzas spread over Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts to be included in the GTA.
The committee, which considered parameters such as homogeneity (whether over 50 percent of the mouza's population was Gorkha), geographical continuity, compactness and ground reality, said only five mouzas - two in Jalpaiguri district and three in Darjeeling district - fulfilled all the criteria for being part of the GTA.
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