The strength of the Opposition INDIA group in the Lok Sabha continued to decline with the suspension of 49 MPs for misbehaving and disobeying the Chair’s orders on Tuesday. This comes the day after both Houses of Parliament suspended an unprecedented 78 Members of Parliament.
Suspended MPs include Congress’s Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari and Karti Chidambaram, NCP’s Supriya Sule, Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav, NCP’s Farooq Abdullah, DMK’s S Senthilkumar, Aam Aadmi Party’s Sushil Kumar Rinku, and Sudip Bandhopadhyay from the Trinamool Congress. The motion to suspend the MPs was brought by Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said in the Lower House, “It was decided not to bring placards inside the House. Due to desperation after losing recent elections, they are taking such steps. This is the reason we are bringing a proposal (to suspend MPs).”
With this, 141 MPs have been suspended from the Parliament overall. 45 MPs from the Rajya Sabha and 46 MPs from the Lok Sabha’s opposition were suspended on Monday.
NCP leader Sharad Pawar wrote to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar as the action against opposition lawmakers entered its second day, requesting that he handle the issue of MP suspensions in the interest of parliamentary procedures. According to Pawar, a few MPs who were not in the House Well or engaged in disruptive behavior had been suspended.
Leaders of the opposition have harshly criticized the mass suspensions, charging that the BJP-led government is “murdering democracy” by quashing dissent and limiting debate in parliament.
“The Opposition is being completely decimated so that dangerous bills can be passed without any meaningful debate. This is also happening so that the BJP MPs who got the two accused admitted into the Lok Sabha on December 13 are let off. All kinds of atrocities of ‘NaMocracy’ are coming to light in new Parliament,” said senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.
