Four days after suspending 13 of the opposition members who were protesting inside the House after the security breach in Parliament last week, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday suspended 33 more for their unruly behaviour which includes showing off placards inside the House in protest for the remaining winter session. This includes leader of the Congress party, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Three of them – K Jayakumar, Vijay Vasanth and Abdul Khaleque – belonging to the Congress party have been suspended for climbing on to the speaker’s podium shouting slogans while protesting. Their matter has been given to the privilege committee and the duration of their suspension will be decided pending its report.
DMK MPs T R Baalu and Dayanidhi Maran and TMC’s Saugata Roy are also among the suspended MPs. Others are Kalyan Banerjee, Aparupa Poddar, Pratima Mondal, Kakori Ghosh Dastidar, Shatabdi Roy, Asit Kumar Mal, Sunil Kumar Mandal and Prasun Banerjee (TMC), E T Mohammed Basheer and K Navaskani (IUML), DMK’s A Raja, G Selvam, S Ramalingam, SS Palanimanickam, Annadurai CN, T Sumathy and Kalanidhi Veeraswamy, RSP’s N K Premachandran, Kaushalendra Kumar (JDU, Congress MPs Subburaman Thirunavukkarasar, Anto Antony, K Muraleedharan, K Suresh, Amar Singh, Rajmohan Unnithan and Gaurav Gogoi
After being named by the Chair in the afternoon, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi moved a motion regarding the suspension and it was adopted by a voice vote. The House was then adjourned for the day. The Opposition MPs who rushed to the well of the House as soon as the House met today forced the proceedings to be adjourned till 12 noon first and continued their protests. Rajendra Agrawal who was in the chair when the House met at 12 noon has warned that there could be action against them if they continue to protest by showing placards. “Showing placards in the House is a violation of rules. The speaker has already warned you. You should not show placards in the House.. it will spoil your case. There would be action against you. Do not force the Chair to take action against you,”Agrawal has told the MPs who were standing in the well.
Their suspension comes in the backdrop of the opposition INDIA bloc deciding to continue their protests inside Parliament to get suspension in solidarity with the MPs who were suspended on Friday.
The Parliament security breach on December 13 with two men men with smoke cans jumping into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery in Parliament, the issue has snowballed into a full-blown confrontation between the Opposition and the government as the opposition MPs continue their protests pressing for a statement from Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the breach. The MPs were also seeking the resignation of the Home Minister and the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi inside Parliament to issue a statement.
In the Rajya Sabha, TMC’s Derek O’Brien also was suspended for the same issue.
On Thursday, as many as 13 Opposition MPs were suspended from the Lok Sabha for disrupting proceedings. The 13 members are Congress’s Manickam Tagore, Benny Behanan,V K Sreekandan, Mohammad Jawed, Hibi Eden, T N Prathapan, Jothimani, Ramya Haridas and Dean Kuriakose; CPM’s P R Natarajan and S Venkatesan; DMK’s Kanimozhi; and K Subbarayan of CPI.
