India, July 23 -- Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP and Mamata Banerjee loyalist Kalyan Banerjee was suspended for the remainder of the Monsoon Session on Wednesday for using "unpalatable" language against women members. After the Lower House was adjourned in the morning, Banerjee had a heated exchange with former colleagues Shatabdi Roy, Mitali Bagh and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. Sources said Banerjee had referred to the NCPI leaders as 'nefarious' in a satirical tone. Mitali Bagh and Shatabdi Roy subsequently met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to raise the issue. When the House resumed at 2 pm, presiding officer Krishna Prasad Tenneti referred to a complaint filed against Banerjee and said his remarks had hurt the dignity of the House. Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal then moved a resolution seeking his suspension, which was passed by voice vote amid opposition sloganeering over the NEET paper leak and other issues.
The suspension took immediate effect. Banerjee again had a heated exchange with NCPI members present in the House before opposition MPs intervened. He later left the chamber. "What will they get by suspending me from here? It is a party of barely twenty people. They held a meeting in Kolkata after a month and a half. They do not even have twenty voters. Not a single person has voted for them in West Bengal. They are all traitors and dishonest people. The government will fall after a year," Banerjee told mediapersons outside Parliament. Kakoli said the incident was "nothing new", alleging that Banerjee was a misogynist who had repeatedly used unparliamentary language against women. BJP leader Sukanta Majumdar said Banerjee had been behaving similarly at various places and was perhaps frustrated by the current state of his party. "He should take some rest," Majumdar said.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.