In an unprecedented move, 78 Opposition MPs were suspended from both Houses of Parliament today in the highest such suspensions in a day following noisy protests as the lawmakers continued to demand Home Minister Amit Shah’s response over the security breach issue. As many as 45 MPs were suspended from the Rajya Sabha and 33 from the Lok Sabha. With this, the total number of MPs suspended from both Houses during the session has gone up to 92. Fourteen lawmakers were suspended last week. In the Lok Sabha, 30 MPs were on Monday suspended for the remaining period of the winter session while three Congress members — V Vasanth, Abdul Khaleque and K Jayakumar—were suspended till the receipt of the report of the privileges committee.
In the Rajya Sabha, 34 MPs were suspended till the remaining period of the session while 11 were those whose names have been sent to the privileges committee, which will give its report within three months. Prominent among the 11 MPs whose names were sent to the privileges committee were Kumar Ketkar of the Congress and John Brittas and Binoy Viswam of the CPI. The names of Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, party’s Rajya Sabha deputy leader Pramod Tiwari and chief whip Jairam Ramesh, and DMK leader in Lok Sabha TR Baalu too were on the list.
The MPs were suspended for showing placards and banners in Parliament despite being repeatedly warned by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and the Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar against doing so.
In the Lok Sabha, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi announced the names of the suspended MPs as the House saw repeated adjournments over the security breach issue. The House was adjourned for the day soon after. In the morning, both the question hour and zero hour proceedings were curtailed owing to the protests. In the post-lunch session, the Post Office Bill 2023 was passed amid pandemonium after a short discussion in the Lok Sabha.
Birla apprised the House of the steps taken by the Lok Sabha secretariat following the security breach incident on December 13 and sought cooperation from all members to run the House smoothly. However, the Opposition MPs were on their feet demanding a statement from Shah and his resignation. Some Opposition MPs were also carrying placards with their demands written on them.
Birla objected to the placards being brought into the Lok Sabha, saying it “lowered the dignity” of the House. Pralhad Joshi said the placards were brought in despite as agreement against it at the Business Advisory Committee meeting.
Accusing the Congress and its allies of “embarrassing” the country with their conduct, Leader of the House Piyush Goyal said that Opposition members “wilfully disrupted parliamentary proceedings”. “It was a pre-planned strategy not to let Parliament run smoothly. The Congress and its allies are intrinsically against the interests of women and backward classes. Whenever the government led by PM Narendra Modi takes any step to empower backward classes and women, they are pained because the Congress and the Left are always against their empowerment,” Goyal said.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge accused the government of trying to bulldoze important draft legislation in an “Opposition-less” Parliament. “With an Opposition-Less Parliament, the Modi government can now bulldoze important pending legislations, crush any dissent, without any debate,” Kharge said on X.
