Bengal: TMC sends fresh letter to speaker on LoP selection amid signature forgery row

Trinamool Congress National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday sent a fresh letter to West Bengal Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose reiterating the party’s decision to appoint Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as Leader of the Opposition, PTI reported.

This amid a probe into an alleged signature forgery case and speculation about divisions within the Trinamool Congress legislative party following the expulsion of MLAs Ritabrata Banerjee and Sandipan Saha on Monday. The two legislators had alleged that signatures were forged in documents submitted to the Speaker in support of Chattopadhyay’s appointment, the news agency reported.

On Tuesday, TMC MLAs Kunal Ghosh and Ashima Patra attempted to hand-deliver the letter to the Speaker. They alleged that the Speaker’s office secretary refused to accept it in Bose’s absence, saying he had been verbally instructed not to receive any letters from the party, PTI reported.

“Till yesterday, the Speaker was receiving our letters,” the news agency quoted Ghosh as saying. “For unknown reasons, the office has stopped accepting them from today. How can he not receive an official communication from two elected MLAs?”

The fresh letter, signed by Abhishek Banerjee, also endorsed Ashima Patra and Nayana Bandyopadhyay as deputy Leaders of the Opposition and Firhad Hakim as the chief whip.

requested the Speaker to recognise the posts “on...

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