19 opposition MPs suspended from Rajya Sabha for a week

Rajya Sabha on Tuesday saw uproar by the Opposition after the suspension of its 19 members for the entire week for repeatedly disrupting proceedings, with the penalized MPs refusing to leave the house.

There were four adjournments till 3:40 pm as the Opposition refused to relent, and later the House was adjourned for the day, without transacting much business.

The Opposition MPs, who have been stalling the proceedings since the start of the Monsoon session on July 18 to press for immediate discussion on price rise and the levy of the GST on daily essentials, were suspended as they did not heed Deputy Chairman Harvansh’s repeated pleas to leave the well of the House and go back to their seats. Four Congress MPs – Manickam Tagore, TN Prathapan, Jothimani and Ramya Haridas – had been suspended on Monday for disrupting proceedings, deepening the standoff between the Opposition and the Government, which is maintaining that it is ready to hold the discussion once Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recovers from COVID-19. On Tuesday, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V Muraleedharan moved a motion to suspend 10 MPs from the sitting of the House for the remainder of the week for their “misconduct” by showing “utter disregard to the House and authority of the chair”. But when Harivansh put the motion to vote, he read out the names of 19 members. The motion was carried by a voice vote. When some Opposition MPs demanded a division of votes, the chair said he would do so if the members returned to their seats and the House was brought to order.

With the MPs refusing to budge, he said it seems they are not interested in the division and declared that the motion has been adopted.

The suspended MPs refused to leave, squatting on the floor of the House, leading to three adjournments — first for 15 minutes by Harivansh, then for an hour and finally, for the day by Bhubaneswar Kalita, who was in the chair. While seven of the suspended MPs belonged to the TMC, six were from the DMK, three from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), two from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and one from the Communist Party of India (CPI). Sushmita Dev, Mausam Noor, Shanta Chhetri, Dola Sen, Santanu Sen, Abir Ranjan Biswas and Nadimul Haque of the TMC were suspended. DMK’s M Mohamed Abdulla, Kanimozhi NVN Somu, M Shanmugam, S Kalyanasundaram, R Girirajan and N R Elango were also suspended. B Lingaiah Yadav, Ravichandra Vaddiraju and Damodar Rao Divakonda (TRS), V Sivadasan and A A Rahim (CPI-M) and Santhosh Kumar (CPI) were the other MPs who were suspended.

Decision to suspend 19 Opposition MPs from RS taken with heavy heart: Piyush Goyal: THE ruling BJP on Tuesday said the decision to suspend 19 Opposition MPs from the Rajya Sabha was taken with a “heavy heart” as they repeatedly ignored the Chair’s appeals to let the House function and infringed on other members’ rights.

Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal asserted that it is not the Government but the Opposition that is running away from a debate in Parliament. He reiterated that the Government is ready for a discussion on price rise once Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman fully recovers from COVID-19 and returns to Parliament.

India has tackled inflation and price rise better than many countries, and the Government is keen to inform Parliament about the important steps it has taken to handle price rise, Goyal told reporters. He also hit out at Opposition parties for protesting against the imposition of the GST on several pre-labelled food items. The Opposition members, including from the Congress, the TMC and the Left, were part of the GST council that took the decision unanimously on introducing the fresh levy, he said.