NEW DELHI: During the Winter Session of the Parliament, a staggering 47 Lok Sabha MPs and one Rajya Sabha MP faced suspension, marking one of the highest instances of parliamentary oustings throughout the year.
The list of suspended MPs is extensive and includes members from various Opposition parties; however, the distribution does not align proportionally with their representation in both houses. For instance, 18 Congress MPs in the lower house have faced suspension, despite the party’s overall representation of 48 seats.
To put matters into perspective, the ouster of the parliamentarians took place after the security breach was done away with. Parliamentarians demanded answers from Home Minister Amit Shah since it was his ministry’s duty to ascertain the security of the temple of democracy. Among those who faced suspension, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the leader of the Grand Old Party in the Lok Sabha, was also part of the expelled group.
Chowdhury, upon being suspended, said, “All leaders, including me, have been suspended. We have been demanding for days to reinstate our MPs who were suspended earlier and that the Home Minister come to the House and give a statement (on Parliament security breach).”
These suspensions raise the question of whether these issues highlight a shortage in the expulsions handed out. The recurring removal of MPs from the Opposition bloc consistently contributes to a drop in proportional representation.
To put matters into perspective, Congress witnessed a 37.5 per cent reduction in representation within the four walls of the lower house. On the other hand, Trinamool Congress (TMC), which has 23 seats at the Lok Sabha, witnessed an ouster of 11 MPs, including Mahua Moitra, who lost out on her status as a parliamentarian.
This basically directs towards the fact that the Mamata Banerjee-led party lost out on 47.82 per cent of their representation. Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien was also suspended during the Winter Session, making him the only upper-house parliamentarian to face suspension.
Similarly, the Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) with a total of 24 seats, witnessed the suspension of 12 of its leaders, including senior leader Kanimozhi — a reduction of 50 per cent.
Not only in the Lok Sabha, today was a bloodbath in the Rajya Sabha with 45 INDIA party MPs getting suspended for demanding a statement by the Home Minister on the December 13th security breach, and for demanding that the Leader of the Opposition be allowed to speak.… https://t.co/iwQN4G8yPZ
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) December 18, 2023
Apart from the bigger primordial parties, MPs from the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), and Janata Dal (United) were also suspended during the Winter Session.
Among the suspended parliamentarians, the TMC saw the ouster of senior leaders Kalyan Banerjee, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Saugato Roy from the Lok Sabha. On the other hand, the Congress saw the suspension of Gaurav Gogoi, to name a few.
Presently, three Congress MPs, K Jayakumar, Vijay Vasanth and Abdul Khaleque, are awaiting the Privilege Committee to ascertain their period of suspension.
Although a few MPs have slated that their suspension had been done because of their calls for a committee to be set up for the security breach, Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, has refuted the claims.
Presently, another 45 MPs have been suspended from the Rajya Sabha as well.