Govt, Opposition face off leads to suspension of MPs

New Delhi, July 26 (IANS) The Central government seems to be in a confrontation mode in Parliament and has alleged that the opposition is not willing to let the House run, hence the decision to suspend 'unruly' MPs.

The government on Tuesday again emphasized that it is ready for discussion and will hold it as soon as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recovers from Covid-19.

Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha, Piyush Goyal, said, "We are ready for discussion but despite that the opposition members are repeatedly disrupting the House proceedings. We have been saying that we are hopeful that as soon as the Finance Minister comes the discussion on price rise will take place."

However, the opposition is slamming the government, alleging that it is not willing to hold discussion and is trying to corner the opposition.

Trinamool Congress MP Mausam Noor, who was one of the suspended MPs, said, "The suspension is very unfortunate, and the MPs only wanted to have discussions on inflation."

She alleged that the "government does not want to have a discussion and this is the reason we have been suspended, we will continue the protest outside Parliament".

A total 19 MPs were suspended as the government was in no mood to relent. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted, "With the suspension of Opposition MPs from both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, it is abundantly clear that Modi Sarkar is in no mood to allow the Opposition to raise Real, URGENT issues being faced by the people of our country in Parliament."

The 19 members include seven from the Trinamool Congress, six from the DMK, three from Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), two from CPI-M and one from CPI.

The suspended Trinamool Rajya Sabha members are Sushmita Dev, Mausam Noor, Shanta Chhetri, Dola Sen, Santanu Sen, Abir Ranjan Biswas and Nadiumal Haque.

The six suspended DMK members are Kanimozhi N.V.N Somu, M. Shanmugam, M. Mohamed Abdulla, S. Kalyanasundaram, R. Girirajan and N.R. Elango.

The other suspended members are B. Lingaiah Yadav, Ravichandra Vaddiraju and Damodar Rao Divakonda of TRS, V. Sivadasan and A.A. Rahim of the CPI-M and Sandosh Kumar of the CPI.

Deputy chairman Harivansh said the members were suspended for showing utter disregard for the House and the authority of the Chair.

The Chair asked the suspended members to leave the House, but they kept protesting in the Well, leading to two adjournments.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V. Muraleedharan moved the motion to suspend the members. When the motion was adopted by a voice vote, Deputy Chairman Harivansh read out the names of 19 members, who have been suspended for the rest of the week.