TMC MP accuses Kalyan Banerjee of verbal abuse, seeks Lok Sabha speaker’s nod to file complaint

Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar on Thursday sought permission from Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to file a complaint against party colleague Kalyan Banerjee, claiming that he repeatedly verbally abused her inside Parliament, The Indian Express reported.

Banerjee’s behaviour reflected misogyny, the Lok Sabha MP from West Bengal’s Barasat seat alleged in a letter to the speaker. She also claimed that similar conduct had been directed at other women legislators as well.

“I seek your permission to lodge a formal complaint to you for redressal against Lok Sabha member of AITC Kalyan Banerjee, who has repeatedly verbally abused me inside the Lok Sabha,” the newspaper quoted Dastidar as saying in her letter to Birla. “This misogyny has been against many lady members and needs to be punished.”

A day earlier, Dastidar resigned from all her organisational posts in the TMC. The four-term legislator in the Lower House also stepped down as the president of the party’s Barasat organisational district unit earlier this week.

The Barasat MP, in her resignation letter to the party, claimed that there was little meaning in continuing in a position where “obscene behaviour” by an “uneducated and uncivilised” party MP towards a woman legislator could not be stopped, The Indian Express reported.

She also alleged that the party’s higher leadership did...

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