On the first day of its business for the Winter Session, the Rajya Sabha on Monday suspended 12 of its members for the rest of the current session on account of “unruly and violent behaviour” during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, even as Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu urged all members of the House to ensure a “democratic and parliamentary space” for a productive winter session. The suspended MPs include six from Congress, two each from Trinamool Congress and Shiv Sena and one each from CPM and CPI. The action has been taken against them for “indiscipline” in the monsoon session of the House.
The suspended MPs are Elamaram Kareem of CPM; Phulo Devi Netam, Chhaya Verma, R. Bora, Rajamani Patel, Syed Nasir Hussain and Akhilesh Prasad Singh of the Congress; Binoy Viswam of CPI; Dola Sen and Shanta Chhetri of Trinamool Congress; Priyanka Chaturvedi and Anil Desai of Shiv Sena.
The suspension notice issued on the first day of the Winter Session read, “That this House takes cognisance and strongly condemns the utter disregard to the authority of the Chair, complete abuse of rules of the House persistently thereby wilfully obstructing the business of House through their unprecedented acts of misconduct, contemptuous, unruly and violent behaviour and intentional attacks on security personnel on the last day of 254th Session of Rajya Sabha (Monsoon Session) i.e, 11 August, thereby lowering the dignity of and bringing disrepute to the August House by the following members and resolves, for above compelling reasons, to suspend these members from the service of the House for the remainder of the 255th session under rule 256 of Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Rajya Sabha.”
Reacting to the suspension, Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi said, “From District Court to Supreme Court, an accused is heard even there, lawyers are provided for them too, sometimes government officials are sent to take their version. Here our version was not taken.” “If you see the CCTV footage it has been recorded how male marshals were jostling with female MPs. All of this on one side and your decision on the other? What kind of unparliamentary behaviour is this?” she added.
Congress’ Chhaya Verma termed the suspension “unfair and unjust” and said, “there were other members from other parties who created a ruckus but the chairman suspended me. PM Modi is doing just as he wishes since he enjoys a brute majority.”
Congress MP Ripun Bora, called the suspension “undemocratic”. “We have not been given the opportunity to be heard. This is a one-sided, biased, vindictive decision. Opposition parties have not been consulted,” he said. “Yes, we had protested in the last session. We had protested for the cause of farmers, the poor people and as Parliamentarians, it is our duty to raise the voices of the oppressed, deprived. If we don’t raise the voices in Parliament, where will we do that?” he added.
Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday urged all members of the House to ensure a “democratic and parliamentary space” for a productive winter session. He also lamented the failure on the part of all concerned to introspect over the unruly incidents during the last monsoon session and commit to do the needful to prevent their recurrence. Stating that this continues to haunt all, Naidu urged the members to draw the right lessons as all sections of the House and the country ended up as losers from the derailed monsoon session.
Naidu further said, “Each one of you can raise any issue in an appropriate manner and unequivocally express your point of view on any issue if only we create space for that instead of din in the House. There is a certain scope for that kind of a democratic and parliamentary space with collective will….I look forward to manifestation of that spirit during this session.”
Naidu said the treasury benched wanted a detailed enquiry into the conduct of some members during the final two days of the last turbulent session. He said he had tried to reach out to the leaders of various parties when some of them made it clear that their members would not participate in any such inquiry. Some leaders expressed concern over the way the functioning of the House was derailed and condemned the unruly incidents.
“On my part, I was expecting and awaiting the leading lights of this august House to take lead in expressing their outrage over what had happened during the last session with assurances of introspection and spirited efforts to prevent recurrence of such incidents. Such assurances by all concerned would have helped me in appropriately handling the matter. But unfortunately, it was not to be,” Naidu said.