5 Oppn parties skip House meet over MPs’ suspension

NEW DELHI: Five opposition parties boycotted a meeting that the government convened on Monday as part of efforts to end the impasse in Rajya Sabha over the suspension of 12 lawmakers.

At a meeting attended by all opposition parties barring the Trinamool Congress (TMC) to decide on the government’s invitation to five political parties for talks, the participants concluded that the invitation to just five of them was an attempt to divide them.

“We refused to attend the meeting (called by the government). We saw it as a ploy to divide the Opposition,” said Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Binoy Viswam, who was among the leaders invited for the meeting convened by the government.

Parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi invited leaders of the Congress, Shiv Sena, TMC, Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M), and CPI for the meeting.

Twelve Rajya Sabha Members of Parliament (MPs) of these parties were suspended for the ongoing Winter Session of the House and triggered the logjam. Mallikarjun Kharge, the Opposition leader in Rajya Sabha, on Sunday wrote a letter to Joshi calling the decision to invite just five parties “unfair and unfortunate”.

“All opposition parties are united in the protest against the suspension of the 12 MPs. We have been requesting from the evening of November 29 itself that either the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha or the Leader of the House Piyush Goyal should call leaders of all Opposition parties for discussion to break the stalemate,” he wrote.

“This reasonable request of ours has not been agreed to, further inviting only leaders of four Opposition parties instead of inviting leaders of all Opposition parties in unfair and unfortunate.” HT has seen a copy of the letter.

On November 29, when the Winter Session started, six Congress lawmakers, two each from the TMC and Shiv Sena, and one each from the CPI (M) and CPI were suspended for their “unprecedented” acts of “misconduct” and “violent behaviour” during the Parliament’s Monsoon Session in August.

The opposition parties met at 9.45 am on Monday at Kharge’s office and took the decision to boycott the government’s meeting.

Opposition MPs hold a meeting to decide whether to attend or not a meeting called by the government on suspension of 12 Rajya Sabha lawmakers, in New Delhi on Monday.