Congress protests suspension of MPs

The Congress MPs carried placards and wore black bands in protest.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi held a meeting with party leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath to chalk out their strategy.

Opposition parties like the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Nationalist Congress Party today raised slogans demanding that the Speaker withdraw her suspension order and then walked out of the Lok Sabha.

The move came after the government approached the Speaker slamming the Opposition for obstructing the House for the past several days.

On a day Congress MPs led by Gandhi sat on a dharna to protest the Speaker’s decision to suspend 25 of their MPs from Lok Sabha, the ruling party lashed out at Gandhi for calling it a “black day for democracy” and raked up the imposition of Emergency to criticise it.

“In this context, the BJP Parliamentary Party strongly condemns the disruptive strategy of the Congress Party since it has unsafe implications for the aspirations of the people of the country and the efforts of the NDA government to build a resurgent India“. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh was among those present.

“On the land issue, Congress stood in front of them”. The suspended leaders belonging to the Congress, had been protesting against the government over the Lalit Modi and Vyapam scams. BJP chief whip Arjun Ram Meghwal too joined the issue and stated that the incident was a “murder of democracy”.

“Their (Congress members) suspension must be withdrawn”, RJD MP Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav told Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

“The suspension is not right; we are against it…The suspension should be withdrawn and the MPs should be called back to attend the session“, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said. “There will be no let up in our pressure (on the government) as far as issues of corruption, Sushma Swaraj and Vyapam (scandal) are concerned”, he said. Also, two-thirds majority in both Houses need to pass the bill.

Referring to the remarks of Congress leaders that they were following the tradition set by the BJP in disrupting the proceedings of parliament, Javadekar said the BJP forced adjournments in 2010 over its demand for a joint parliamentary committee.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said the party did “not like the decision of the Lok Sabha speaker, but we respect her position”. He said that instead of his own “mann ki baat” Prime Minister Narendra Modi should “listen to India’s mann ki baat'”.