Senior Advocate and All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Kalyan Banerjee was suspended for a day from the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill after an intense altercation with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Calcutta High Court judge, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay. The incident escalated when Banerjee, during a heated argument, smashed a glass bottle, injuring his thumb and index finger. He received first aid at the medical centre inside the parliament complex.
The confrontation occurred while two Odisha-based organizations were making a presentation. Opposition MPs, including Banerjee, questioned the relevance of the presentation. Reportedly, Banerjee spoke out of turn, determined to make his point while Gangopadhyay was still talking. Justice Gangopadhyay, however, refused to yield the floor, leading to an intense verbal exchange.
Kalyan Banerjee, the TMC MP from Serampore in Hooghly district, has had a long and distinguished political career. He first won an Assembly seat in 2001 from Asansol Uttar, and though he lost in 2006, he transitioned to national politics by winning a seat in the Lok Sabha in 2009. He is now serving his fourth term as MP from Serampore. Besides his political career, Banerjee is a prominent senior advocate who practices at the Supreme Court of India and Calcutta High Court.
On the other hand, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, now a BJP MP representing Tamluk in West Bengal, resigned from the Calcutta High Court in March to join the BJP before contesting the Lok Sabha elections. As a judge, he had been a vocal critic of Mamata Banerjee’s TMC government and had issued several controversial rulings. One such incident involved accusing Justice Soumen Sen of the Calcutta High Court of acting in favour of a political party in the state, leading to Supreme Court intervention. The apex court eventually took control of several cases handled by Gangopadhyay due to the controversies surrounding his judgments.
The clash between Banerjee and Gangopadhyay continues the political rivalry between the TMC and BJP, with both leaders having a history of public and legal confrontations.
