Bengal speaker rejects motion against Buddha

KOLKATA: A breach of privilege motion brought against West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee by opposition Trinamool Congress in connection with the land acquisition issue at Singur for the Tata Motors small car project was rejected on Monday by speaker of the state legislature Hasim Abdul Halim on technical grounds.

In the uproar that ensued, Trinamool Congress MLA Sougata Roy snatched the microphone from the speaker’s table and alleged that Mr halim was involved in undemocratic activities by rejecting the motion. The speaker asked the security staff of the House to remove the agitating Trinamool MLAs from near his table.

The speaker told reporters that none of the documents submitted by opposition leader Partha Chatterjee in favour of his motion were authenticated. “How can I accept unauthenticated documents? I have rejected the motion purely on ground that the documents were neither attested nor authenticated,” Mr Halim said.

Asked who will authenticate the documents, Mr Halim said, “Any government official can do the job. Even the MLA concerned who has filed the motion is capable of authenticating the documents. Not only were the papers not authenticated, many of these documents filed by the opposition leader were incomplete.”

Mr Chatterjee moved the motion last week saying the chief minister had misinformed and misguided the Assembly on the issue of Singur land acquisition for the Tata Motors small car project. “There are contradictions in the chief minister’s statements regarding the land acquisition at Singur. Once he had said that his government had got the consent of 90% of people whose land the government had taken over.

But in a letter to Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister had offered a different view and contradicted his own earlier statement. We consider it a clear case of misinforming the Assembly and brought the privilege motion against him,” he said.