Impasse over swearing-in of 2 TMC MLAs; legislators stage sit-in demonstration

The swearing-in of two newly-elected Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislators couldn’t be held on Wednesday after West Bengal governor CV Ananda Bose neither arrived at the state legislative assembly to administer the oath nor delegated the power to the Speaker or the deputy speaker.

The two MLAs, Sayantika Banerjee and Rayat Hossain Sarkar, waited for Bose while sitting on the stairs of the legislative assembly holding placards which read “Waiting for the arrival of Hon. Governor for oath.”

“We are not nominated. We are elected representatives. What wrong have we done that despite being elected by the people we are not able to take the oath and we have to beg for that? We never said that if the governor administers the swearing-in, we will not take the oath,” Banerjee told media persons at the state assembly.

They were joined by Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, a veteran TMC leader and state parliamentary affairs minister. Other legislators and ministers also came to meet them during the demonstration.

“The governor is harassing the people of West Bengal on the orders of the Centre. He is depriving the elected representatives of this right (of swearing-in,” said Chattopadhyay.

The Raj Bhavan in Kolkata was yet to issue any statement on the stalemate on Wednesday.

However, taking to X on Tuesday, the Raj Bhavan had cited Article 188 of the Constitution of India, which states that every legislator shall take an oath before the governor or some other persons appointed by him.

“Usually when the chief minister takes the oath, the governor administers it. For the rest of the legislators, he delegates the power to the Speaker of the legislative assembly. That is the norm across all states,” said Chattopadhyay.

The Raj Bhavan, however, highlighted occasions in the recent past in which the governor had administered the swearing in of the chief minister and some other MLAs.

“In the past there have been conventions of the newly elected members viz Mamata Banerjee, Jakir Hossain and Amirul Islam making and subscribing oath or affirmation before the then Governor in 2021,” the Raj Bhavan’s post on X stated.

The two TMC MLAs Sayantika Banerjee and Sarkar were elected from Baranagar and Bhagwangola assembly seats in by-polls held simultaneously with the recently held Lok Sabha elections.

“There was no communication between the Raj Bhavan and the legislative assembly. The two legislators informed me that they requested the governor to come to the legislative assembly and administer their swearing-in. The assembly secretariat was asked to keep everything ready so that the swearing-in could be held if the governor arrives. It seems that the governor is throwing a challenge. It would have been right had the swearing-in be held at the assembly,” Biman Bandopadhyay, speaker of the West Bengal legislative assembly, told reporters on Wednesday.

While the two MLAs waited for the governor at the assembly, sitting on the stairs with placards for four hours, people familiar with the matter in the Raj Bhavan said that Bose had left for Delhi.

People familiar with the matter in the TMC said that the two MLAs were likely to stage sit-in demonstrations at the legislative assembly again on Thursday for two hours. The party is also likely to seek advice from legal and constitutional experts on this, leaders said.

Bikashranjan Bhattacharyya, senior advocate of Calcutta high court and former mayor of Kolkata said that it is usually the Speaker who administers the oath.

“Elected representatives usually take oath in the assembly before the Speaker. The chief minister and other ministers usually take their oath before the governor,” said Bhattacharyya.

“Whatever the governor has done, he has exercised his constitutional rights. It was not his whimsies. The governor can delegate the powers. He can even delegate that power to me, and I can administer the oath,” said Suvendu Adhikari, BJP MLA and leader of the Opposition.