JPC meet on Waqf bill turns chaotic, injured TMC MP suspended for ‘unruly conduct’

All India Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee was on Tuesday suspended for one day and two meetings of the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, just hours after he reportedly broke a glass during their meeting and hurt himself in the process following an argument with BJP MP Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
He was suspended after BJP Lok Sabha MP Nishikant Dubey moved a motion that was backed by nine members, while eight others dissented. The order to suspend Banerjee was given by JPC chairperson and BJP Lok Sabha MP Jagdambika Pal.
Banerjee was suspended for “uttering wrong words against the chairperson and gesturing to throw the broken bottle towards the chairperson”, Dubey said in a statement.
Some BJP MPs, including Gangopadhyay, wanted Banerjee to remain suspended for the remainder of the JPC, HT has learnt.
The incident took place when the JPC was hearing depositions from Cuttack-based Justice in Reality, and Panchasakha Bani Prachar Mandali earlier on Tuesday.
According to a person aware of the matter, Banerjee had requested to intervene as these two organisations were making their presentations. Chairperson Pal refused the request as Banerjee had already spoken during the meeting. The TMC MP persisted with his request.
Gangopadhyay objected to Banerjee’s repeated demands to speak, leading to a furious argument between the two. In the heat of the moment, Banerjee broke a glass.
This is where conflicting versions have emerged. Banerjee said he cut his hand while trying to throw the broken glass, while Dubey in his statement claimed that he threw the glass towards the chairperson.
AIMIM Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi and AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh were seen accompanying Banerjee out of the meeting room, with the TMC MP’s right thumb and little finger heavily bandaged. Proceedings of the meeting resumed soon after he got medical attention.
A senior BJP leader said that Banerjee has had a history of acting out in meetings, and that soon after the incident, the BJP members in the committee were already planning on moving motions against him.
The JPC meetings on the contentious bill have been dogged by disruptions. Last week, several opposition members walked out of the JPC meeting on October 14, claiming that personal allegations made against the Karnataka government and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in the testimony by Anwar Manippadi, former chairperson of the Karnataka State Minorities Commission, were allowed by the JPC chairperson. The meeting, however, continued despite the boycott.
In at least two meetings, including the ones on October 14 and October 21, and during the JPC’s ‘study tour’ to Mumbai, members raised questions on the inclusion of certain stakeholders who are not experts on Waqf and related matters.
On October 21, objections were raised on the inclusion of advocates Ashwini Upadhyay and Vishnu Shankar Jain, whose petition challenging the inclusion of the word “secular” into the Preamble of the Constitution was dismissed by the apex court on Monday.
Pal, according to one of the persons cited above, said that the chairperson reserved the authority to call experts.
Besides Upadhyay and Jain, Mahant Sudhirdas Maharaj, the head priest of Shri Kalaram Temple in Nashik; Amita Sachdeva of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti in Goa; and Chetan Rajhansa, the national spokesperson of Sanatan Sanstha (SS) in Goa had deposed before the JPC on October 14.
The inclusion of Rajhansa raised issues due to his organisation’s links to the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh. The special investigation team that probed her murder had said in its additional chargesheet in 2018 that Sanatan Sanstha’s members were involved in her incident and that her killing was planned over five years because of her ideology. Rajhans, at that time, denied that the accused were members of SS.
The Karnataka Police SIT had arrested 17 people linked to SS and other Hindutva outfits for Lankesh’s murder, of which 11 have been granted bail till date. The same group is also linked to the murders of Narendra Dabholkar and Leftist thinker Govind Pansare in Maharashtra, and scholar MM Kalburgi in Karnataka.
The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind had also deposed before the committee on October 14 and said it was not consulted ahead of the Waqf bill, HT reported earlier today.