Parliamentary democracy in peril: Suspension drama continues in Parliament
Continuing the suspension drama, the Lok Sabha today suspended two more MPs from the Opposition—Thomas Chazhikadan of Kerala Congress (M) and AM Ariff of CPI(M)—for the remainder of the winter session for “displaying placards and entering the Well of the House”.
With these, a total of 143 MPs have now been suspended from Parliament for the rest of the session, which ends on Friday. The number includes 97 from the Lok Sabha and 46 from the Rajya Sabha. This is a record in Indian parliamentary history.
With an Opposition-less Parliament, the BJP is also finding it easy to pass bills, some of them very impactful ones, like the three replacing the Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and Indian Evidence Act.
The act of suspending MPs for exercising their rights, in this case, demanding statements on a crucial issue (security breach on December 13) from the government, is a very dangerous trend for parliamentary democracy, something which will impact the country for years, indeed decades, to come.
