No democracy in Congress DNA, says BJP

The standoff in Parliament between the government and the opposition took a new turn Monday when Speaker Sumitra Mahajan named and suspended 25 Congress members from Lok Sabha for five days for “persistently, wilfully obstructing” proceedings in the House.

Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh and vice president Rahul Gandhi, joined a noisy protest at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in the parliament complex – all of them sporting a black band on thier arms.

After admonishing the lawmakers for wearing black armbands and carrying placards inside the house, Sumitra Mahajan, speaker of the powerful lower house, suspended the members of the Congress party.

The Janata Dal-United led by its leaders Sharad Yadav and KC Tyagi additionally participated within the protest.

Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha, Somaiya said a demonstration was held against the Lok Sabha Speaker at her residence and added that there was even a threat to burn her effigy. “I hope they (Congress) understand the spirit of the all-party meet”.

Mahajan said he can raise the issue later, but the SP members walked out of the house in protest.

Resolution passed by the BJP Parliamentary Party on the obstructionist Parliamentary strategy of the Congress during the Monsoon Session of Parliament in 2015. Rahul Gandhi spoke of the Vypam scam in which “thousands of young people” are looking for justice; and of the “evidence” involving Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje in the Lalit Modi case.

The Congress leader said she was not aware of any proposal from the government to end the logjam or for revocation of the suspension of the 25 Congress MPs. Suspension of our MPs is anti-democratic.

“The speaker’s decision has created a tension between the government and the opposition”, he told reporters.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke about the accord, signed yesterday, and his ministerial colleague Nirmala Sitharaman proposed it, Naqvi said. I have sought time from the Prime Minister.

“They should review their stubborn attitude”.

The PM has been very free with his promises yet he seems totally incapable of delivering on them – for its silence on acts of monumental corruption, its willful violations of law and gross misdemeanors on part of its leading lights, she said.