Kolkata: Uncertainties have arisen over the new seat allotment of former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee in the state Assembly since Chatterjee is yet to inform the Assembly Secretariat officially whether he will attend the forthcoming Winter session of the House scheduled to be held next month.
Chatterjee, being suspended by the Trinamool Congress leadership from the party after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials in July 2022, in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal, will now be considered as an Independent legislator, and he will neither be allotted any seat in the Treasury nor in the Opposition bench.
The new seat allotment for him would be somewhere in the middle of the Treasury and Opposition benches.
However, according to an insider from the Assembly Secretariat, no initiative could be taken about the new seat allotment for Chatterjee since the latter is yet to officially inform the Assembly Secretariat on whether he will attend the forthcoming Winter session of the House scheduled to be held next month.
Incidentally, after being released on bail earlier this month after spending three years and three months in jail, Chatterjee told the media persons that he will attend the Winter session of the Assembly and participate in the debate there.
However, he is yet to intimate about the Assembly Secretariat.
Chatterjee has also not made an official request to the Assembly Secretariat to reactivate his official bank account, where his salary as an elected legislator was credited before his arrest.
Till Chatterjee makes an official request in the matter, the Assembly Secretariat insiders, have said that neither the account would be reactivated nor his salary as a legislator would be credited there.
The former West Bengal Minister has served a five-time Trinamool Congress legislator from Behala (Paschim) Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district. When the Trinamool Congress was in opposition, Chatterjee had been the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal.
During the current Trinamool Congress government, Chatterjee had handled important Ministerial portfolios with the Education and the Commerce and Industries department, besides managing the organisational affairs of the Trinamool Congress as the party’s Secretary General.
(IANS)
