The spectacle of Opposition MPs being punished continued on Monday with as many as 78 Members — 45 MPs from Rajya Sabha and 33 MPs from Lok Sabha— suspended from the respective Houses for their “ignoble and disorderly” conduct in in Parliament over last week’s security breach incident.

This latest count of 78 MPs along with the 14 MPs suspended on December 14 (a day after the security breach) has taken the overall tally of suspended MPs to 92. 

Unprecedented action

The mass suspension of 78 MPs on a single day is one of the largest in Parliament’s history. 

TMC leader and Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien

TMC leader and Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien | Photo Credit: ANI

As many as 64 MPs have been suspended for the remainder of the Winter Session, which will conclude this Friday. The remaining have been suspended pending a report of the Privileges Committee.

Since last Wednesday’s security breach incident, both Houses have every day seen instances of ruckus, prompting the first round of suspension of 14 MPs, including TMC leader and Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien, on Friday.

Some of the prominent and high profile MPs in the Lok Sabha who got suspended on Monday include Adhir Ranjan Chaudhury, Congress leader in the lower house; DMK MPs T R Baalu, Dayanidhi Maran and A Raja; RSP MP N K Premachandran andTMC’s Saugata Roy for disrupting the proceedings and showing placards besides raising slogans.

Other Congress MPs in the lower house who got suspended include Kodikunnel Suresh, Vijayakumar Vasanth, Gaurav Gogoi, Abdul Khaleque.

Rajya Sabha

On the Rajya Sabha front, several prominent personalities including Congress’ Jairam Ramesh, Randeep Surjewala and K C Venugopal were suspended for causing disruptions in proceedings.

Commenting about the unprecedented action taken against the MPs, Piyush Goyal, leader of House in Rajya Sabha, said that Congress and its allies “insulted” the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Speaker with their conduct.

Opposition parties have slammed the suspension of 92 MPs, highlighting that no action has been taken against BJP MP Prathap Simha, who had facilitated the passes for the two accused who jumped from the visitors’ gallery into the Lok Sabha chamber and released yellow smoke from Canisters in a major security scare. The intruders were later overpowered by MPs and handed over to the security personnel.

Opposition-less Parliament

Opposition parties have been demanding a statement from Union Home Minister on the security breach. Slamming the suspension of MPs, Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress President, said in a ‘x’ post that “all democratic systems have been thrown into the dustbin by the autocratic Modi Government”

in an opposition-less Parliament, the Modi government can now get important pending laws passed by the muscle of majority without any discussion, debate or disagreement, he added in the post.

Kharge noted that opposition parties have two simple and easy demands —(1) Union Home Minister should make a statement in both Houses of Parliament on the serious breach inothe security of Parliament. (2) There should be a detailed discussion on this.

“There was an attack on Parliament on 13 December 2023, Today again Modi Government has attacked Parliament and democracy”, Kharge wrote in his post at ‘x’, formerly Twitter.