Speaker silences Cong with suspension shock
‘A BLACK DAY FOR DEMOCRACY’ 25 of 44 Congress MPs punished for ‘persistently, wilfully obstructing House’
NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended 25 Congress MPs on Monday for five days on charges of disrupting proceedings but the unusually-stern crackdown is unlikely to shore up chances of the passage of the government’s reform bills in the monsoon session.
Mahajan suspended over half the party’s 44 LS parliamentarians — who were carrying placards and shouting slogans demanding the resignation of top BJP leaders over the Lalit Modi controversy and the Vyapam scam — for “persistently, wilfully obstructing the House”.
A visibly-angry Congress president Sonia Gandhi denounced the action as a “black day for democracy and for India” but parliamentary affairs minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy insisted Mahajan was “constrained” to take the decision as Congress MPs were not listening to her constant appeals.
“Like in Gujarat opposition members used to get suspended, similar thing is happening here. It is the Gujarat model which is being implemented,” Congress Leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, told reporters after a day of ruckus in Parliament.
Mahajan justified the decision, saying Congress MPs refused to heed to her past requests of not displaying placards or shout slogans by rushing into the well of the House. “A handful of MPs are denying around 300-325 MPs of their right to speak. This cannot go on.”
Several parties, including the Trinamool Congress and CPI(M), are likely to join the Congress in boycotting the Lok Sabha.
“The Modi Govt will soon understand that truth cannot be silenced. The ppl of India & Congress Party have shown this in case of land bill. Truth will not be silenced in the case of corruption scams either where the Prime Minister is protecting the guilty,” the handle of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s office tweeted.
“We stand with each one of our suspended MPs: Rahul Gandhi,” @OfficeofRGtweeted. Since the monsoon session began on July 21, little business has been conducted so far as an aggressive Congressled Opposition disrupted both Houses demanding the removal of foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasnthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje over allegedly helping Modi and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan over the multi-crore Vyapam recruitment and admissions scandal.
The pandemonium has threatened to derail a host of pending bill, including the landmark goods and services tax bill, as experts warned falling investments and the flagging pace of reforms could hobble India’s growth prospects.
The dramatic suspensions are only the second time in India’s parliamentary history when such a large chunk of MPs have been barred from proceedings, but are unlikely to boost the government’s legislative agenda as the Opposition still controls the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling coalition is in a minority.
The move came shortly after an all-party meeting called by the government failed to resolve the deadlock with the Congress rejecting a NDA offer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention if there was a debate on the Lalit Modi issue. Home minister Rajnath Singh already ruled out any resignations. Kharge said nine parties have decided to join a Congress protest inside the Parliament complex on Tuesday, when Sonia and Rahul will also boycott Lok Sabha proceedings. The suspended members include BN Chandrappa, Santokh Singh Chaudhary, AHK Choudhury, Sushmita Dev, Ninog Ering, R Dhruvanarayana, Gaurav Gogoi, G Sukender Reddy, Deepender Singh Hooda, S Kodikunnil, SP Muddahanumegowda , Abhijit Mukherjee, Mullappally Ramachandran, KH Munniyappa, BV Nayak, Vincent Pala, M K Raghavan, Ranjeet Ranjan, CL Ruala, T Sahu, Rajeev Satav, Ravneet Singh, K Suresh, KC Venugopal and T Meinya.
Some MPs, including Satav, later said they were not present in the House when suspensions were ordered.