New Delhi [India], July 22 : Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Kalyan Banerjee, who was suspended from the Lok Sabha for the rest of the monsoon session following a complaint to the Speaker about alleged inappropriate behaviour and intemperate language against women MPs, hit out at rebel MPs of the party who have joined NCPI and said they have no support in West Bengal.
He termed the party's rebel MPs "traitors". "What will they get by suspending me from here?... It is a party of barely twenty people. They (20 TMC rebel MPs) held a meeting in Kolkata after a month and a half. They do not even have twenty voters. They have nothing. Not a single person has voted for them in West Bengal...They are all traitors and dishonest people...The government will fall after a year," he told reporters.
Earlier, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal moved a motion in the Lok Sabha seeking the suspension of Banerjee for the remaining part of the Monsoon session of Parliament.
The motion was moved after TDP leader KP Tenneti, who was in the Chair, informed the House that the Speaker had received a written complaint against Banerjee over his alleged conduct and language. The motion was subsequently adopted by the House amid sloganeering by opposition members over their demands.
The complaint alleged that Banerjee displayed "unprecedented behaviour" inside Parliament while business was underway and "in his misogynistic manner verbally abused NCPI members and minister Bhupendra Yadav".
The Monsoon Session of Parliament began on Monday. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla approved separate seating arrangement for 20 MPs who broke away from the TMC. However, the merger of the rebel TMC MPs with the NCPI has not yet been approved by the Speaker.