West Bengal Speaker Biman Banerjee on Thursday expressed displeasure over legislators not attending meetings of the Assembly standing committees and urged them to be present regularly in them.
Banerjee, who had on previous occasions criticized the legislators for not being regular when the House is in session, said he has noticed that some legislators sign the attendance sheet of the standing committee meetings to avail the allowances but do not attend it.
“This is unacceptable ... The standing committee meetings are held to discuss and deliberate important issues and policies. But this is not been done. I request all legislators to attend these meetings,” he said.
According to the norms of the Assembly, a legislator is allotted membership of two committees – a departmental standing committee and a committee of the House.
Reacting to the Speaker’s comment, state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay said it is the opposition BJP MLAs who do not attend the standing meetings on most of occasions and the Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari (BJP) must look into it.
“Yes, legislators not attending meetings have been an issue. But for the last few sessions the attendance in the treasury benches and also in the standing committee meetings have improved,” he said.
BJP chief whip Manoj Tigga contradicting the minister said most of the MLAs of the party have been regular in attending meetings of the standing committees.
“I am not aware if our MLAs are irregular. But it is good if every MLAs regularly attend standing committee meetings,” he added.
(Inputs from PTI)
