Authoritarianism, blatant disregard of Parliament by ruling party on display again
The BJP government once again showed its authoritarianism and blatant disregard of Parliament when it got the Rajya Sabha Chairman to suspend 12 opposition MPs over the scuffle on the last day of the monsoon session. The opposition, though, said it would not take it lying down.
Twelve opposition Rajya Sabha MPs were suspended on Monday, November 29, the opening day of the winter session, for the entire session; the accusations against them being “unprecedented acts of misconduct”, “unruly and violent behaviour” and “intentional attacks on security personnel” on August 11, the last day of the monsoon session.
This was the first instance of the invoking of Rule 256 of Rajya Sabha Rules for suspending members for things that happened in the previous session.
Opposition parties described the move as “authoritarian”, “unwarranted” and “undemocratic”. It could sow the seeds of far more serious dysfunction in Parliament, reducing the legitimacy of parliamentary democracy.
The incidents on August 11—scuffle between some opposition members and marshals—occurred when the government tried to bulldoze the passing of the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill, 2021, despite repeated requests from the opposition and even its own allies to send the bill to a Select Committee.
The 12 suspended Rajya Sabha MPs include Phulo Devi Netam, Ripun Bora, Rajamani Patel, Syed Nasir Hussain and Akhilesh Pratap Singh of Congress, Dola Sen and Shanta Chhetri of Trinamool Congress, Anil Desai and Priyanka Chaturvedi of Shiv Sena, Elamaram Kareem of CPI(M) and Binoy Viswam of CPI.
However, a point to note is that there is no clarity on why these 12 MPs were chosen when the government chargesheet had named more than 20 members. Among those not suspended are AAP’s Sanjay Singh, who was one of the first to climb on the reporters’ table and Congress’s Pratap Singh Bajwa, who was seen on television visuals throwing the rule book at the empty chair.
Monday’s suspension was the biggest such action in the history of the Upper House.
Previously, on September 21, 2020, eight MPs—the late Rajeev Satav, Syed Nasir Hussain and Ripun Bora of Congress, Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen of Trinamool Congress, Elamaran Kareem and KK Nagesh of CPI(M), and Sanjay Singh of AAP—were suspended, which was the second-highest number, over the passage of two of the three controversial farm sector bills.
Of course, the Modi government had to take back the three laws after more than a year of protests by thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, who were joined at different times by farmers from across the country.
The Farm Laws (Repeal) Bill for repealing the three farm sector laws was passed on Monday without any discussion being allowed by the government in both the houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. This was another example of subversion of Parliament, something the Modi government is resorting to more and more.
Today, Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien said in an interview to NDTV that, like the last time (September 2020, when he was one among the suspended), the suspended MPs will be in Parliament every day. They will do sit-ins on the lawns, sing songs, etc. as marks of protest against the bulldozing attitude of the Union government.
Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal (of the BJP) said today that the government can request the House “reconsider” the issue of suspension of the 12 MPs yesterday if they apologised for their actions, an unlikely possibility as of now.
