33 Lok Sabha Members of Parliament, all from Opposition parties have been suspended by Speaker Om Birla for ‘unruly behaviour’ and disrupting proceedings of the House. This is the second round of suspensions of Opposition MPs after 14 MPs were suspended on December 14. The Opposition members were demanding statements of PM Naresndra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on the security breach in Parliament.
The suspended MPs include former Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury,Gaurav Gogoi, Vijay Vasanth, Rajmohan Unnithan of the Indian National Congress, Trinamool MPs Kalyan Banerjee, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Saugata Ray and Satabdi Roy and DMK MP’s Dayanidhi Maran and A Raja. While 30 of the MPs have been suspended for the rest of the winter session, the duration of suspension of three others will depend on the Privilege Committees report.
Among the suspended MPs, 9 are from DMK, 11 from INC, 9 from AITC, 1 from RSP, and 2 from IUML.
As the proceedings began on Monday morning, Opposition MPs started shouting slogans, accusing the BJP of running away from questions on the security breach on December 13. Demanding Amit Shah’s resignation, MPs were also carrying placards with their demands written on them. Three Congress MPs–K Jayakumar , Vijay Vasanth and Abdul Khaleque–climbed on the Speaker’s table, attempting to disrupt the proceedings.
The security breach in Parliament had led to the Opposition MPs staging a protest and demanding a statement from the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the breach. They also asked for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to issue a statement and asked for Amit Shah’s resignation.
Due to the disruption, 13 Opposition MPs from various parties such as the Congress, DMK, CPM and others were suspended from the Lok Sabha on December 14. TMC’s Derek O’Brian was suspended from the Rajya Sabha due to the same reasons.