Trinamool Congress (TMC) reiterated its demand for the removal of party Member of Parliament Shishir Adhikari, over his alleged anti-party activities.
TMC Lok Sabha leader and senior MP Sudeep Bandhopadhyay met LS Speaker Om Birla and demanded Adhikari’s disqualification from the MP post under the anti-defection law.
The law mandates the Chairman or the Speaker of the respective legislative house to be the ultimate decision-making authority in case of any disqualification that arises.
On June 3, Bandhopadhyay appraised the matter to the Speaker, however, the petition regarding Adhikari’s disqualification reached the Speaker on May 17.
Adhikari’s elder son, Suvendu Adhikari, joined the BJP camp before the Bengal assembly election. He went on to beat Chief minister Mamata Banerjee from Nandigram in the election.
What might have ruffled the TMC is the fact that Shishir Adhikari defied party diktat and went ahead to cast his vote in the vice presidential election, which the party decided to abstain from.
Bandhopadhyay informed that the Speaker assured him of taking action and will be sending the “party’s request to the Privileges Committee soon.”
Earlier it was stated that Adhikari was deliberately and purposefully delaying the settlement of the matter of his removal from the post.
Bandhopadhyay in his letter to the Speaker said, Shishir Adhikari replied to the letter dated July 15, 2021, on November 29, 2021, which is a straight away four months delay.
Bandhopadhyay said that in the letter handed over to the Speaker it has been mentioned that Shishir Adhikari has misunderstood the law invoked.
“All the allegations made by him are false, baseless and have no legal basis. The allegations raised by Shishir Adhikari should be dismissed and strict action should be taken,” he said.