The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a resolution suspending Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee for the remainder of the ongoing Monsoon Session, citing his use of unparliamentary language against a woman member of the House.
Event Context
Banerjee himself objected to the seating decision at the time, arguing it was premature given that disqualification petitions against the breakaway MPs remained pending before the Speaker, a comment that underlined how the seating row and the conduct complaint have played out in parallel in recent days.
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Responding to the original complaint in May, Banerjee dismissed the allegations as false, fabricated and made as an afterthought, asserting that Ghosh Dastidar was acting with a motive. He said that while she had every right to complain, the timing of her allegations needed scrutiny since no objection was raised when the remarks were purportedly made. Banerjee is yet to comment specifically on Wednesday’s suspension.
The episode is not the first time Banerjee’s conduct in Parliament has drawn scrutiny. Members of a Waqf Bill panel earlier accused him of “goondaism” after he broke a glass bottle during a heated exchange and demanded his suspension and an FIR, an incident he later said followed provocation and was not intended to endanger anyone. He was also among opposition MPs suspended from a Joint Parliamentary Committee meeting in January 2025 after being accused of using unparliamentary language against the panel’s chairperson.
Ghosh Dastidar, for her part, maintained that her complaint was about a sustained pattern of behaviour rather than an isolated remark, and said such conduct toward women members needed to be addressed and punished.
Team Analysis
The action against the Sreerampur MP comes weeks after Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar formally complained to Speaker Om Birla, accusing Banerjee of “repeated verbal abuse” and misogynistic conduct inside Parliament.
In her letter to the Speaker, Ghosh Dastidar accused 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.
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Banerjee has denied the accusations, calling them fabricated, and questioned why Ghosh Dastidar did not raise the matter with the Chair immediately if the alleged remarks were made during House proceedings.
Ghosh Dastidar’s complaint was not a one-off. She first flagged Banerjee’s conduct on May 28, a day after resigning all her organisational posts within the TMC. Banerjee took over as the party’s Lok Sabha chief whip the same day she quit, in what has since widened into a broader rift in the TMC’s parliamentary unit.
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That rift has since taken a new shape. Ghosh Dastidar is now among 20 TMC MPs who have broken away and aligned with the newly formed Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI).
Wednesday’s suspension comes just three days after this group returned to Parliament and began sitting separately from the TMC benches, following Speaker Om Birla’s approval of a request for distinct seating arrangements for the 20 rebel MPs. The Speaker, however, is yet to rule on their formal merger with the NCPI, leaving their parliamentary status technically unresolved even as the seating split has sharpened tensions between the two camps.
