The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a resolution to suspend Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee for the remainder of the ongoing monsoon session, citing his use of unparliamentary language against a woman MP.
The action against the Srirampur MP comes weeks after Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar filed a formal complaint with Parliament Speaker Om Birla, accusing Banerjee of “repeated verbal abuse” and misogynistic behavior within Parliament.
In her letter to the Speaker, Ghosh accused Dastidar Banerjee of repeatedly verbally abusing her on the floor of the House and sought his expulsion from the Lok Sabha, alleging that other women legislators faced similar treatment from him.
Read also | Chaos in the streets of Parliament amid AKP protests reverberates in the House of Representatives on the opening day of the monsoon session
Banerjee has denied the charges, terming them fabricated, and questioned why Ghosh Dastidar did not raise the matter with the President immediately if the alleged statements were made during the House proceedings.
Ghosh Dastidar’s complaint was not a one-off. She first reported on Banerjee’s behavior on May 28, a day after she resigned from all her organizational positions within the TMC. Banerjee took over as the party’s Lok Sabha speaker on the same day she resigned, and what has since widened into a wider rift in the TMC’s parliamentary unit.
Read also | CJP Parliament rally violence: Delhi Police records 4 cases, 2 more cases will be filed
This rift has since taken a new form. Ghosh Dastidar is now among the 20 TMC MPs who have broken away and joined the newly formed National Citizens Party of India (NCPI).
Wednesday’s comment comes just three days after this group returned to Parliament and began sitting separately from the TMC benches, after Speaker Om Birla approved a request for distinct seating arrangements for the 20 rebel MPs. However, the Speaker of Parliament has yet to rule on their formal merger with the National Socialist Party, leaving their parliamentary status technically unresolved even as tensions between the two camps worsen.
Banerjee himself objected to the seating decision at the time, arguing that it was premature given that the disqualification petitions of dissident MPs remained pending before the Speaker, a comment that underscored how the seating row and the conduct complaint had developed in parallel in recent days.
Read also | Left MPs visit Jantar Mantar and demand Amit Shah’s statement in Parliament on police actions
Responding to the original complaint in May, Banerjee dismissed the allegations as false, fabricated and presented as an afterthought, asserting that Ghosh Dastidar was acting on impulse. He said that although she had every right to file a complaint, the timing of her allegations needed scrutiny because no objection was raised when the statements were allegedly made. Banerjee has not yet commented specifically on Wednesday’s comment.
This is not the first time Banerjee’s behavior in Parliament has come under scrutiny. Members of the Stop Bill Committee had earlier accused him of “Gondism” after he broke a glass bottle during a heated exchange and demanded his suspension and an FIR, an incident he later said came after provocation and was not intended to put anyone in danger. He was also among the opposition MPs who were suspended from attending a joint parliamentary committee meeting in January 2025 after they were accused of using unparliamentary language against the committee chair.
For her part, Ghosh Dastidar stressed that her complaint was about an ongoing pattern of behavior and not an isolated comment, and said that such behavior towards female members needed to be addressed and punished.
