State Congress leaders plan to submit a memorandum to Chidambaram on the political violence in the state since the Lok Sabha elections this year.

In the Assembly today, the Trinamool and Congress staged a walk-out after Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim refused to accept Opposition leader Partha Chatterjee’s demand for scrapping the question-answer session to discuss Sunday’s killings of the two Opposition leaders in Habra in North 24-Parganas district.

“The leaders were killed by miscreants who had attacked them during a blood donation camp at Habra. Unfortunately, the killers were very close to the CPM and we want an immediate discussion on this instead of holding the question-answer session,” Chatterjee told the Speaker who, however, turned down the plea.

Both Congress and Trinamool MLAs walked out of the House and held separate dharnas on the state Assembly premises. Trinamool legislators then rushed to Raj Bhavan to meet the Governor and lodge their complaints against the state administration. But acting Governor Devanand Konwar, who is also the Governor of Bihar, was away from Kolkata. It is learnt the Governor’s office has assured the Trinamool delegates that Konwar will be available on Wednesday to meet them.

While the Trinamool boycotted the proceedings of the House for the day, the Congress took part during the second half. Two other MLAs, Debaprasad Sarkar of the SUCI and Chunibala Hansda of the Jharkhand Party, also walked out of the House in protest against the Speaker’s decision not to allow them to discuss the law and order issue.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, while admitting that not all was well with the law and order situation in the state, told the Assembly that some local Trinamool leaders in the Jangalmahal area were holding secret meetings with the outlawed CPI(Maoists) and “I can give you the names of the local Trinamool leaders who are in constant touch with the Maoists”. Interestingly, there was no Trinamool legislator in the House when the chief minister made this statement.