PATNA, Oct. 5 -- CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya on Sunday questioned why the state assembly has still not cancelled the membership of BJP MLA Raju Kumar Singh nearly three months after a Delhi court sentenced him, while the same house had moved with striking speed against one of his own party legislators two years ago. Bhattacharya trained his gun directly on assembly speaker Prem Kumar. "Raju Singh was held guilty by the Rouse Avenue court on 4 July. Three months have passed, yet his membership has not been terminated. Why has the speaker not made a decision," he asked in a statement issued from Sahebganj in Muzaffarpur, the constituency the BJP legislator represents. Speaker Prem Kumar, who returned to Patna on Friday after a nearly three-week foreign tour that took him to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Cape Town and study visits to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the Maldives, offered a measured response. "I was on tour and could not go through the matter," he said. The speaker added that he would examine the issue of the Sahebganj MLA once back in the capital. "Action will be taken as per the norms at the earliest," Kumar stated. Bhattacharya's intervention rests on a pointed comparison. On 13 February 2024 a special court in Arrah convicted CPI(ML) MLA Manoj Manzil (also referred to as Manjil) and sentenced him to life imprisonment in a 2015 murder case. Within days the Assembly secretariat issued a notification disqualifying him with effect from the date of conviction. A by-election for the Agiaon (SC) seat was held soon after, coinciding with the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. "In the same Assembly, why different yardsticks," Bhattacharya asked. "If the law and constitutional provisions apply equally to every elected representative, why has no action been taken against the BJP MLA even after three months? The speaker must clarify why the decision remains pending. In a democracy the law cannot have one standard for one party and another for the rest." The facts of Singh's case are unambiguous. On June 6, 2026 a special court at Rouse Avenue in Delhi convicted the six-time Sahebganj MLA under Section 304 Part II of the IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and provisions of the Arms Act. On July 4, the court sentenced him to four years' simple imprisonment and ordered payment of Rs.25 lakh as compensation to the family of Archana Gupta, who was killed by a bullet during celebratory firing at Singh's farmhouse in Fatehpur Beri on the night of December 31, 2018. The Delhi High Court later suspended the jail term but, on September 29, refused to stay the conviction itself. Under Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, a sentence of two years or more triggers automatic disqualification from the date of conviction unless a higher court intervenes....