Rebel Ritabrata Banerjee To Debut As Bengal Leader Of Opposition In Blow To Mamata Banerjee

Decks are clear for Ritabrata Banerjee to debut as Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly. In a big setback for the Mamata Banerjee camp and a big boost to the rebels, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday refused to put an interim stay on the appointment of Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition by the Assembly Speaker.

Senior Trinamool MLA Sobandeb Chattopadhyay has challenged Speaker Rathindranath Bose's decision to recognise the rebel MLA Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition in the state legislative assembly.

With the court's refusal of interim stay, Ritabrata Banerjee will attend the Budget Session of the Bengal Assembly starting today as the Leader of Opposition.

Sobandeb Chattopadhyay was Mamata Banerjee's originial pick for the Assembly post and the same was communicated to the Speaker. Ritabrata Banerjee, backed by nearly 60 of the 80 Trinamool MLAs put the spanner in the former chief minister's plan and declared himself as the Leader of Opposition citing support from the majority of the MLA.

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The Speaker subsequestly recognised the rebel group and appointed Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition.

Sobandeb's petition in the court stated that Speaker acted contrary to constitutional principles by ignoring the decision of the political party and instead relying upon the numerical strength of a faction within the legislature party.

At an earlier hearing, the court had observed that natural justice required the Speaker to hear all concerned parties before arriving at a conclusion and questioned whether allegations of forgery alone could justify sidelining the original proposal.

The Bench had further asked whether the Speaker could independently determine which faction represented the majority without first completing an inquiry into the competing claims.

According to the Speaker's stand, 58 out of 80 legislators supported Ritabrata Banerjee and personally appeared before the Speaker. The Speaker therefore relied on numerical strength within the legislative party while taking the decision.

The rebel camp contended that the Speaker's decision was entirely based on the numerical strength of legislators and therefore could not be faulted.