Scuffle takes Opposition leader from House to hospital bed

Kolkata: In a rare move, Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee suspended Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan for two days on Wednesday, sparking a ruckus in the House that left him ill and in hospital. When the House’s marshall Debabrata Mukherjee and deputy-marshall Bholanath Mukherjee went to execute the Speaker’s order to take Mr Mannan out of the Assembly, Mr Mannan decided not to leave his seat.

A scuffle then ensued between security personnel and MLAs from the Congress and the Left, who tried to prevent the marshalls from forcibly taking the Congress legislator of the House. Both sides accused each other of attacking them. It was during this scuffle that Mr Mannan fell ill. A desk at the Opposition bench, where Mr Mannan was sitting, was damaged during the 30-minute-long tug of war. Equipments on the desk, including microphones and voting machines, were broken. 

The Congress MLA was later carried by Opposition legislators out the House while staging a walk-out. He was seen writhing in pain. Mr Mannan was whisked away in an ambulance to the GD Hospital & Diabetes Institute, a private hospital in central Kolkata where he has been admitted to the intensive care unit.

A doctor from the hospital, Sukumar Mukherjee, said, “When Dr Mannan was brought here, his blood pressure was high and his heart was completely blocked. He also suffered some external injuries in his left leg. He needs to undergo a temporary pacemaker implantation. The cardiologists will decide when the implantation will be done.”  

“Dr Mannan was advised earlier to undergoe the implantation due a partial blockage in his heart,” he added.