Taking a strong view of party MLAs skipping the Assembly session, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will be now maintaining two attendance registers for its legislators in the Assembly – one in the office of the Parliamentary Affairs Minister and the other in the chief whip's room – and send a weekly attendance report to party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Parliamentary Discipline Committee chaired by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay on Wednesday and attended by Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim, Power Minister Arup Biswas, Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya and Minister of State for Forest Department Birbaha Hansda. The disciplinary panel, under Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, was constituted after nearly 50 TMC MLAs were absent in the Assembly during the last session in which resolutions over the Statehood Day and state anthem were tabled. The TMC has 216 MLAs in the Assembly. “I think not attending the session during voting is not only unfair and unjust, but also an anti-party act,” Sovandeb Chattopadhyay said. Speaking about taking attendance of party MLAs, he said: “Firstly, during the Assembly session, all the ministers should come and sign the book kept in the Parliamentary Affairs Minister's office. Secondly, the MLAs have to sign in the register kept in the Chip Whip's room. Every week, I will send the attendance record to the chief minister.” “MLAs, who will leave the House after signing the attendance book and don't raise issues of their constituents in the session, will not be tolerated,” he added. Sources said that the party's disciplinary committee is also looking into the statements of Debra MLA and former IPS officer Humayun Kabir and Rejinagar MLA and former minister Alam Chowdhury in which they had criticised the government. Meanwhile, BJP mocked the TMC's decision saying the ruling party was getting paranoid about its MLAs' loyalty. “TMC does not have faith in its own MLAs. Their leaders are always afraid that their MLAs are in contact with the Opposition party. That is why they are now planning to carry out surveillance on them,” BJP MLA Shankar Ghosh said.
