NEW DELHI, Aug 3:
Confrontation between Government and opposition is set to escalate with Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan today suspending 25 Congress members for five days for “persistently, wilfully obstructing” the House”.
The Speaker ‘named’ (identifying for action) the 25 Congress members who were carrying placards and shouting slogans in the Well while pressing for resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje over Lalit Modi row and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over Vyapam scam.
While taking the tough action under Rule 374(A), she said the members were being suspended for “persistently, wilfully obstructing the House”.
She ruled that the ‘named’ members will not attend five sittings of the House. Congress has 44 members in all.
Mahajan adjourned the House immediately. However, a number of the Congress members staged a sit-in in the House.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi also did not leave the House for quite some time and were seen holding discussions with leaders of some other opposition parties.
Her action came after several warnings and despite pleas by TMC leader Sudip Bandhyopadhyay and CPI(M) leader P Karunakaran that it would aggravate the situation.
The Rule 374(A) says: “Notwithstanding anything contained in rules 373 and 374, in the event of grave disorder occasioned by a member coming into the Well of the House or abusing the Rules of the House persistently and wilfully obstructing its business by shouting slogans or otherwise, such member shall, on being named by the Speaker, stand automatically suspended from the service of the House for five consecutive sittings or the remainder of the session, whichever is less.”
The move came after the Government approached the Speaker slamming the Opposition for obstructing the House for the past several days.
Such a major action is the first in the current Lok Sabha.
The suspended members included B N Chandrappa, Santok Singh Chaudhary, A H K Choudhury, Sushmita Dev, Ninog Ering, R Dhruvanarayana, Gaurav Gogoi, G Sukender Reddy, Deepender Hooda, S Kodikunnil, S P Muddahanumegowda, Abhijit Mukherjee, Mullappally Ramachandran, K H Munniyappa, B V Nayak, Vincent Pala, M K Raghavan, Ranjeet Ranjan, C L Ruala, T Sahu, Rajee Satav, Ravneet Singh K Suresh, K C Venugopal and T Meinya.
Sonia Gandhi was angry at the Speaker’s decision and asked Leader of Congress Mallikarjun Kharge to lodge protest.
Kharge, while objecting to the Speaker’s action, said “our demand is that the Ministers resign. Then everything will be peaceful”.
Amid the bedlam, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said there is no FIR, no court observation and no prima facie case against Swaraj as well as the two Chief Ministers and hence there is “no justification” for them to resign.
He said the CVC too has not pointed out any wrongdoing. “We have not shied away from discussion and we are ready for it.”
Singh said while Opposition has an important role in Parliamentary democracy, the House should be allowed to function.
His response came when Kharge opposed the Speaker’s move to name MPs from his party for disrupting the proceedings.
Before naming them, the Speaker repeatedly told Congress members not to display placards and return to their seats.
“Don’t force me to take stringent action…You cannot say they disrupted proceedings so we will also do the same…We cannot denegrade ourselves further,” Mahajan said.
Bandhopadhyay and Karunakaran urged the Speaker not to suspend the members and the warring parties should be given a change to resolve issue as they are “experienced politicians”.
Karunakaran recalled that BJP had stalled the Lok Sabha as opposition party for one month and such an action in the present Lok Sabha could be avoided.
The Speaker said if they are ready to take guarantee for Congress members, she could have a rethink.
Some members from Left parties were also in the Well raising slogans against the Government but were not displaying placards.
Earlier, the all party meeting today failed to break the nearly fortnight-long deadlock in Parliament with Congress unrelenting on its demand for resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and BJP CMs Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Govenment firmly rejecting it.
However, a number of regional parties including Trinamool Congress and Biju Janta Dal voiced anguish over continued disruption of the Houses and asked the two national parties to resolve the matter to ensure that other issues are discussed in Parliament.
JD(U) and Left parties, however, backed Congress in the meeting.
“Outcome of the meeting is nil, we stand by our demand. Govenment wants to be the King and they expect the Opposition parties to behave like the subjects. Such things do not work in a democracy. Democracy is give and take.
“Govenment has not taken any initiative. They want to pass bills. At the same time they do not want to take concerns raised by Opposition parties on board,” Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters after the all-party meet.
The meeting saw the Congress upping the ante against the goverment after Congress President Sonia Gandhi set the tone for the party’s strident line in a meeting of Congress Parliamentary Party earlier in the day.
“Govenment came without any proposal. They did not have any suggestion and made only an appeal. The meeting was totally unproductive,” CPI-M’s Sitaram Yechury told reporters after the meeting.
Rejecting Congress charge that Govenment was being arrogant in not listening to Opposition demands, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said that the Govenment has always “walked the extra mile” to accommodate Opposition’s views and cited examples of referring GST and Real Estate Bills to Select Committee on the demand of Congress.
While expressing Govenment’s readiness to discuss any issue and offer intervention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Naidu at the same time made it clear that there will be “no resignation” as the NDA ministers have done “nothing illegal or immoral”.
He also slammed the Congress for running a “campaign of calumny” against Swaraj, who he said is one of the “best performing ministers” of the Govenment.
Breaking her silence, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today said she had not made any request to the British Govenment for issue of travel documents to controversial former IPL chief Lalit Modi and asserted that all allegations against her were “baseless and unfounded”.
Swaraj managed to speak a few sentences in the Rajya Sabha amid slogan-shouting by Congress members seeking fixing of accountability in the Lalitgate and Vyapam scam but could not complete her statement, as Deputy Chairman P J Kurien adjourned the House till 1200 hours amidst the din.
Seizing on Kurien’s statement that Prime Minister cannot respond unless a discussion as demanded by Anand Sharma (Cong) under Rule 267 by suspending the business is initiated, Leader of the House Arun Jaitley said Swaraj would make a statement to initiate the debate in the absence of unwillingness of the Congress leader to initiate it.
Swaraj said she had conveyed on ‘day one’ through Jaitley that she was ready to respond to all charges being made against her.
The allegations of assisting Lalit Modi are “baseless and unfounded,” she said, adding “I did not make any request to the British Govenment for issue of travel documents to Lalit Modi.”
She wanted to say more but Kurien adjourned the House amid vociferous protests from the Congress members, who moved into the Well the moment Swaraj rose to speak.
The Minister said for two weeks she has been coming to the House every day in the hope of being able to make a statement and clarify on the issue.
Meanwhile, a combative Sonia Gandhi today rejected Govenment’s offer of Prime Minister’s intervention on Lalitgate and Vyapam issues in Parliament to break the impasse, insisting that those responsible for “gross wrong-doings” should first resign.
Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress President said he is conspicuous by his “deafening silence on the blatant transgressions” by his External Affairs Minister and two Chief Ministers.
“The champion of ‘mann ki baat’ appears to have retreated into a “maun vrat”, she said while lashing out at the Prime Minister and the BJP at the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meeting here.
The Congress chief said that the party is very clear that there can be “no productive discussion and no meaningful proceedings as long as those responsible for gross wrong-doings remain in office”.
“Our stand is straightforward and clear from day one. There is a mountain of incontrovertible evidence in public domain for the Prime Minister to require the resignations of the External Affairs Minister and the two Chief Ministers,” she said ahead of an all-party meeting convened by the Govenment to resolve the two-week long deadlock.
Making a strong pitch for “resign first, debate later” line, she wondered whether the BJP has forgotten that it is the “author of the principle which it has used on at least five different occasions since 1993”.
She preceded the remark by saying that since memories are short, the party needed to remind its political adversaries who “conveniently are suffering from selective amnesia”.
“Today, we have to listen to sermons on Parliamentary behaviour from those who not only defended but also advocated disruption as a legitimate tactic when they were in the opposition.
“Yesterday’s agitators in both the Houses have suddenly become today’s champions of debate and discussion,” she said
Sonia, who is also Chairperson of the CPP, declared that the Congress will “persist” making its points “forcefully and emphatically” both in Parliament and outside.
Just two more weeks are left for the monsoon session to conclude. Seeking to end the impasse, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venlaiah Naidu had said the Prime Minister will be prepared to make an intervention during a debate on the Lalit Modi and Vyapam issues.
Sonia today alleged that the impasse was due to the “gross insensitivity of the Modi Govenment to public opinion, for its absolute silence on acts of monumental corruption, its wilful violations of the law and gross misdemeanours on the part of its leading lights”. (PTI)
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