Bengal Assembly budget session to begin today amid crucial HC verdict on Ritabrata Banerjee’s LoP status

Kolkata, June 18 (ANS) The budget session of the West Bengal Assembly will start from Thursday amid the crucial verdict to be passed by a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court on the petition challenging the decision of Speaker Rathindra Bose to accept expelled Trinamool Congress Legislator Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the new majority bloc of the party in the House and as the official Leader of Opposition (LoP) .

The budget session will begin with the speech of West Bengal Governor R.N. Ravi.

Meanwhile, the crucial hearing at Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Krishna Rao challenging the decision of Speaker Bose to accept Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the new majority bloc of the party in the House and as the LoP was concluded on Wednesday, and the judge reserved the judgment in the matter for the day.

However, Justice Rao said on Wednesday that he would pronounce the verdict most likely in the second half of Thursday.

At the same time, during the hearing, he questioned why the demand to recognise the rival bloc led by Ritabrata Banerjee was accepted without giving the political leadership of the party a chance to present its views.

So, the beginning of the Assembly budget session and the judgement on this crucial day will likely coincide.

While the budget session of the House will begin on Thursday, the full budget for the ongoing financial year of 2026-27 will be presented by the new finance minister, Swapan Dasgupta, on June 22.

To recall, on February 5 this year, the previous West Bengal Minister of State for Finance (Independent Charge), Chandrima Bhattacharya, presented the interim (vote-on-account) budget on the floor of the Assembly.

The full budget could not be presented due to the West Bengal Assembly elections, which were then due in April. The results were declared on May 4, following which the new government was sworn in.

Last week, after being allotted the portfolio of the state finance department, Dasgupta said his target is to increase the state’s own tax revenue without imposing an additional burden on people through an upward revision of the existing tax structure.

–IANS

src/dpb