AGARTALA, Aug 28 (TIWN): Tripura assembly speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath heard the arguments of the MLAs who shifted to Trinamool Congress is scheduled to announce his decision on Monday (August29).

However, it is to be mentioned here that that leaders have been charged with defection and the speaker to announce his decision on August 29.

The MLAs Sudip Roy Barman (former Tripura Congress Legislature Party leader), Ashish Saha, Diba Chandra Hrangkhawl, Pranjit Singha Roy and Dilip Sarkar submitted their arguments against the petition by state Congress president Birajit Sinha.

Sinha's petition had urged the speaker to cease the memberships of the 'defectors' from the assembly. Another MLA who had shifted allegiance, Biswabandhu Sen, has already been suspended from Congress for six years for 'anti-party' activities.

Meanwhile, TMC MLAs said they are confident the allegation of anti-defection law violation will not be held valid as they meet the criteria for merging with another party.

Congress president Sinha reiterated that he had detailed discussions with the concerned people in the party and had placed legal provisions before the speaker for taking decisions. He was confident the MLAs would lose their membership.

TMC’s Tripura unit chairman Ratan Chakraborty, a minister in the Congres-led State government during 1988-1993, had warned that if the Speaker did not recognise his party as the main opposition party in the assembly and the six rebel Congress legislators as TMC legislators, they would seek the Governor’s intervention.

A TMC delegation had also earlier met Governor Tathagata Roy and informed him of the political development in the state.

Roy Barman, along with other party legislators and a large number of leaders, resigned from the Congress in June in protest against the party’s alliance with the Left parties for the West Bengal assembly elections.