In a stern message to members disrupting the proceedings of Parliament regularly, lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday suspended 25 Congress MPs for five sitting days for “persistently, willfully obstructing” the House.
This evoked an equally combative response from the Opposition as nine parties decided to boycott the House proceedings for the next five days in protest against the Speaker’s action.
The Congress MPs will stage a dharna in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Parliament Complex on Tuesday to protest against the suspension. Members of other parties are likely to join the protest.
The Speaker “named” (identifying for action) the 25 Congress members who were carrying placards and shouting slogans in the Well while pressing for resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje over lalit Modi row and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over Vyapam scam.
The Speaker took the action under Rule 374(A), rejecting the requests of the TMC and the left leaders. Mahajan adjourned the House immediately after. However, a number of Congress members staged a sit-in in the House. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi also did not leave the House for some time and were seen holding discussions with leaders of some other Opposition parties.
Soon after the suspension, Sonia Gandhi called leaders of a few Opposition members to counter the lok Sabha Speaker’s decisions and dubbed the entire episode as “a Black Day for democracy.”
The Speaker’s action came after several warnings during the day to the agitating Congress MP, who often slammed her podium with placards. .
Before naming them, the Speaker repeatedly told Congress members not to display placards and return to their seats.
“Don’t force me to take stringent action...You cannot say they disrupted proceedings so we will also do the same...We cannot denigrate ourselves further,” Mahajan said.
The suspension is the first in the current lok Sabha. The suspended members included B N Chandrappa, Santok Singh Chaudhary, AHK Choudhury, Sushmita Dev, Ninog Ering, R Dhruvanarayana, Gaurav Gogoi, G Sukender Reddy, Deepender Hooda, S Kodikunnil, SP Muddahanumegowda, Abhijit Mukherjee, Mullappally Ramachandran, KH Munniyappa, BV Nayak, Vincent Pala, MK Raghavan, Ranjeet Ranjan, Cl Ruala, T Sahu, Rajee Satav, Ravneet Singh K Suresh, KC Venugopal and T Meinya.
Congress leader of the House Mallikarjun Kharge, while objecting to the Speaker’s action, said, “Make the Ministers’ reign and everything will be peaceful.”
Amid the bedlam, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said there is no FIR, no court observation and no prima facie case against Swaraj as well as the two Chief Ministers and hence there is “no justification” for them to resign.
Sudip Bandhopadhyay (TMC) and P Karunakaran (CPM) urged the Speaker not to suspend the members and the warring parties should be given a chance to resolve issue as they are “experienced politicians”. Karunakaran recalled that while in Opposition the BJP had stalled the lok Sabha for one month.
The Speaker said if they are ready to take guarantee for Congress members, she could have a rethink. Some members from left parties were also in the Well raising slogans against the Government but were not displaying placards.
According to leader of the Congress in lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, nine parties have decided to protest the Speaker’s decision and we are also with talks with the Samjawadi Party on this particular issue.
According to Kharge, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Indian Union Muslim league and left parties have conveyed their decision to boycott the House for the next five days.
Bandopadhyay said that his party has decided to oppose the suspension in the greater interest of Parliamentary democracy. “Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge requested us for support. We discussed it with our leader Mamata Banerjee and it was decided to support the Congress over the suspension of 25 Congress MPs. This was necessary for good and healthy Parliamentary democracy. We are not attending the session for next five days,” Bandopadhyay said.
NCP’s Tariq Anwar said the action shows BJP veteran lK Advani’s apprehensions that Emergency can return could be “coming true as we are moving toward black days”.