Photo: Collected
A total of 78 opposition members of parliament (MPs) both from the Indian Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, were suspended on Monday (18 December) for staging protests seeking Home Minister Amit Shah's statement on the recent security breach inside the parliament, reports said.
The Rajya Sabha this evening suspended 45 MPs for the remainder of the Winter Session, barely hours after the Lok Sabha suspended 33 over the Opposition's incessant protests demanding the statement of the Indian home minister on last week's security breach inside parliament.
Meanwhile, 14 opposition MPs had been suspended last week, also for demanding the statement on the same issue. So, this takes the total number of MPs suspended in this session to 92.
Earlier on Monday, the suspended MPs staged a protest on the stairs of the Makar Dwar on the Parliament premises here.
The suspended MPs from Lok Sabha include Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Congress's leader in Lok Sabha, and Gaurav Gogoi, deputy leader of the party in the House. Trinamool MPs Kalyan Banerjee, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Saugata Ray and Satabdi Roy, and DMK members A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran are also on the list.
The government's move prompted allegation from the Congress that the former intended to "bulldoze" legislation in the Parliament without the Opposition's dissent or scrutiny.
"Not only in Lok Sabha, today was a blood bath in the Rajya Sabha with 45 India party MPs getting suspended for demanding a statement by the Home Minister on the December 13 security breach, and for demanding that the Leader of the Opposition be allowed to speak. Incidentally, I too figure in
this Roll of Honour-for the first time in my parliamentary career of 19 years," Congress Leader Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X on Monday.
President of Indian National Congress Mallikarjun Kharge said with an Opposition-less Parliament, the government can now "bulldoze important pending legislations, crush any dissent, without any debate".
Messenger/Sun Yath
