The West Bengal Assembly on Thursday (September 4, 2025) witnessed unprecedented protests during the debate on a resolution condemning ill-treatment of Bengali migrants in other parts of the country. Five legislators, including the party’s chief whip Sankar Ghosh, were suspended for disrupting proceedings of the House.
The suspended MLAs were evicted from the House by security personnel. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari had been suspended on Tuesday (September 2, 2025) when the resolution was tabled in the House.
The resolution, which strongly condemned all incidents of targeting of Bengali migrants, demanded that Bengalis be allowed to live with dignity, security, and freedom across the country. It was passed with voice vote after more than two hours of protests.
The debate on the resolution began on a stormy note, with BJP legislators being absent when Speaker Biman Banerjee called their name to participate in the debate. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged the Speaker to allow one BJP MLA to speak, and the Speaker permitted Asansol South MLA Agnimitra Paul. Ms. Pal spoke for about 15 minutes, after which the Speaker switched off her microphone, and the Chief Minister rose to address the House.
The BJP legislators, however, appeared in no mood to allow the Chief Minister to speak. Amid repeated appeals by the Speaker, the BJP legislators continued to raise slogans against the Trinamool Congress. Mr. Biman Banerjee then suspended Mr. Ghosh, who was marshalled out of the House. One by one, four more BJP MLAs — Ms. Paul, Mihir Goswami, Ashok Dinda and Bankim Ghosh — were suspended and forced to leave.
The Chief Minister tried to address the House amid the din but had to stop several times. “A time will soon come when there won’t be a single BJP MLA in Bengal. The people will ensure it. The BJP will face inevitable defeat, for no party that wages linguistic terror against Bengalis can ever win in Bengal,” Ms. Banerjee said.
During the Chief Minister’s address, the Opposition and Treasury benches raised slogans against each other, and and came face to face. Scuffles were avoided after senior legislators of the Treasury benches intervened. The Chief Minister herself walked up to her party MLAs and advised them against approaching BJP legislators trying to disrupt her speech.
On several occasions, the Trinamool legislators, who vastly outnumber their BJP counterparts, drowned the protests of BJP MLAs with their own slogans. Both sides also raised similar slogans, calling each other “thieves”.
“They are Bangla-Birodhi [anti-Bengal]. We are not against any language. We believe in the spirit of unity in diversity. But you are anti-Bengal. Bangla-Birodhi hatao, desh bachao [Remove anti-Bengali people, save the country],” Ms. Banerjee said pointing at the BJP MLAs.
Ms. Paul, who spoke on the resolution, said as per data shared by the Chief Minister, of about 22 lakh migrant workers, only 10,000 had returned to the State, which is about 0.45% of the total. Ms. Paul said that even migrants who had returned to the State rejected the Chief Minister’s ₹5,000 per month aid under the ‘Shramashree’ scheme and returned to other States with more documents.
After he was evicted, Mr. Ghosh fainted and was admitted to a private health facility in the city. BJP president J.P. Nadda calledMr. Adhikari to inquire about the health of Mr. Ghosh.
On Tuesday, when the resolution was tabled in the House, Mr. Adhikari was suspended by the Speaker. Mr. Adhikari had objected to a reference made by State Education Minister Bratya Basu on the Army.
The State BJP reacted strongly to the suspensions. “This humiliation will never be forgotten. Our fight will continue. Trinamool will be held accountable for every tear shed by the people of Bengal,” the State unit posted on social media.
