The political battle between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP in next year’s Assembly elections in West Bengal is expected to be fierce and on Thursday found its echo in Parliament.

While the debate earlier in the week on Vande Mataram witnessed the BJP and the TMC squaring off over Bengal’s cultural legacy, e-cigarettes and smoking were the bones of contention this time.

It all started during the Question Hour, when former minister and BJP’s Hamirpur MP Anurag Thakur stood up and asked Speaker Om Birla if smoking e-cigarettes was allowed in the House while it remains banned in the rest of the country. With the Speaker taken aback, like many MPs present in the Lok Sabha, Thakur alleged, without naming anyone, “A TMC MP is sitting and smoking an e-cigarette. In fact, a TMC M

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