Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari said on Friday that he had no information about violence following the announcement of the election results on May 4 and warned that in case the Opposition submitted the proof of any victims, they would be sent to jail if they had been named in the complaints related to the post-poll clashes of 2021.
Responding to the Trinamool Congress's charge that thousands of its workers were rendered homeless since the BJP's landslide, Suvendu did not merely deny the claims; he weaponised the post-2021 election scene to silence the Opposition benches.
"We have no information about such incidents (post-poll violence).... I do not know of anyone rendered homeless. If you do, inform the administration. If anyone has been forced to leave home, you can give a list to the director-general of state police," Suvendu declared on the floor of the Assembly.
The chief minister then attacked the Trinamool narrative by invoking the "blood-stained" memories of the 2021 post-poll "terror", imposing a condition that effectively turned a plea for rehabilitation into a promise of incarceration.
"There is only one condition. There should be no allegations of post-poll terror against that person from 2021. If a respectable person is on the list, the local BJP MLA and the district police chief will respectfully escort them to their home. But if their name is part of a (2021) complaint, then they will have to go to jail," thundered Suvendu, not long after the day's proceedings saw a semblance of civility as Rathindra Bose, the BJP MLA from Cooch Behar Dakshin, was elected unopposed as Speaker.
Bose was escorted to his chair by Suvendu and the leader of the Opposition, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay.
"The 12,500 complaints of post-poll violence that were filed in 2021, the new government will first dispose of them," said Suvendu, warning that no matter who the culprit was, nobody would be spared.
Former minister Chattopadhyay, an eight-term veteran since 1991, spearheaded the Trinamool offensive with a critical speech.
"We call elections a festival of democracy. But that democratic system keeps breaking down. The BJP said not bhoy, but bhorosha (not fear, but reassurance). But there is no bhorosha. On the contrary, bhoy has increased fourfold. I will request the chief minister to take measures so that people can return home," Chattopadhyay said to his former colleague in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet.
The reference was to another Trinamool turncoat, the BJP's Tapas Roy — handling pro-tem Speaker responsibilities till Bose's election — who said the House has become “free of bhoy” and criticised the Opposition over allegations of post-poll violence, referring to 2021 (three years before he switched sides).
When Trinamool MLAs protested, Roy told them to shut up, and later concluded his address with “Jai Shri Ram”.
The friction intensified when BJP legislators began shouting "chor (thief)" slogans.
As the House briefly descended into a frenzy of shouting from the Treasury benches — and some feeble responses from Trinamool — Suvendu intervened to silence his ranks, allowing Chattopadhyay to deliver a final, stinging warning.
"It seems like I can hear the footsteps of a dictatorship. I don't want democracy to be destroyed. If democracy is destroyed, and an autocracy is established, then the people will deliver a fitting response," said the leader of the Opposition.
Eventually, 60 of the 80 Trinamool MLAs who were present on Friday staged a walkout but later returned.
Adding to the day's drama was the intervention of the ISF's Bhangar MLA Nawsad Siddique. Representing a younger, more isolated defiance, Siddique spearheaded a critique of both the current and former regimes, recalling the desperation of 2021, claiming he felt like resigning within six months of his victory because of the persecution of his party colleagues.
"I urge the government to ensure dignity for the Opposition in the House, and allow them adequate scope to raise pro-people issues.... We will not oppose for the sake of opposition," he said.