More articles by

Vijaya Pushkarna
Vijaya Pushkarna

LOK SABHA

Six Congress MPs suspended for improper conduct

ls-sumitra-mahajan-pti Oppostion members throw papers in the air in front of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha in New Delhi on Monday | PTI

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday suspended six Congress MPs for five consecutive sittings for improper conduct after they tore up papers and threw them towards her podium.

Just a day before, in what may be one among his last speeches as president of India, Pranab Mukherjee, had pitched for dissent, but not disruption. But the very next day, Lok Sabha was adjourned without transacting any business, thanks to disruptions by Congressmen. 

Congress members of the Lok Sabha stormed the well, threw bits of  paper, as they protested the denial of an adjournment motion on the issue of mob lynchings. 

Immediately after Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Congress parliamentary party, questioned why his adjournment motion on the lynching and attacks on dalits , women and minorities was rejected, the chaos began.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended the six Congress parliamentarians for five days on the grounds of undermining the dignity of the chair with their unbecoming conduct and for disrupting the proceedings of the house. The house was then adjourned for the day.

The suspended leaders included Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary, Sushmita Deb, K. Suresh, Gaurav Gogoi, Ranjeet Ranjan and M.K. Raghavan.

Just when the question hour was about to begin, opposition MPs stormed the well, demanding a debate on the agrarian crisis in place of the scheduled question hour. The sloganeering continued even as some MPs were on their feet, and the subjects being raised varied from reservation for OBCs in Navodaya Vidyalayas to demonetisation.

Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar attempted to intervene and move the sloganeering MPs back to their seats, but without any success.

The Congress had, in fact, been preparing for a face off with the government on the issue of the missing 39 Indians in Iraq. They had plans of submitting a privilege motion against External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, alleging she mislead "the country, the house and the families", according to Congress MP Prata Singh Bajwa.

But while that is an emotive issue for the Congress, which is in power in Punjab, the lynching of members of the weaker sections by the cow vigilantes, as well as farmer suicides, were to be the focus among the opposition parties.

Among the slated business for the day in the Lok Sabha, were the introduction of bills pertaining to Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2017 and the Central Road Fund Amendment Bill 2017. The MPs were also slated to consider and pass the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Amendment) Bill 2017 and also the Companies (Amendment) Bill 2016.

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.

Related Reading

    Show more