West Bengal Budget Session 2021 Live: Assembly session likely to be stormy, eye on Governor’s address

West Bengal Budget Session 2021-22 Latest Update: The first session of the newly constituted West Bengal Assembly is commencing today. The session is likely to be stormy with the Mamata Banerjee government on the one hand and the opposition BJP and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on the other set to clash over a range of issues including post-poll violence. The session starts today with the Governor’s address and will continue till July 8. The state budget for 2021-22 would be placed on July 7. Dhankhar had already raised a few issues over the draft speech sent to him by the state government. According to sources, the Raj Bhavan wanted inclusion of the incidents of post-poll violence in the state to which the TMC government had an objection.

“The norm is the governor reads out the speech prepared by the state government. The governor cannot make any change as per his whims and fancies,” TMC Chief Whip Nirmal Ghosh said. Last year too, he was opposed to parts of the contents of the speech, but had read it out. In support of Dhankhar, former Tripura Governor and BJP leader Tathagata Roy said there is no laid down rules that the governor’s speech at the assembly has to be exactly as drafted by the state government. The BJP, with 75 MLAs, is the main opposition in the Bengal assembly. The Congress and the Left parties have no representation in the present House. However, their alliance partner ISF has one MLA.