The 12 members of Parliament (MPs) from the opposition parties, who were suspended from the Rajya Sabha for the rest of the winter session on Monday, will sit on protest in front of the Mahatma Gandhi’s statue from tomorrow (Wednesday).
This was decided at a meeting held in the chamber of leader of the opposition, Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge, the leaders who were present there said.
Soon after the House assembled for the day, Kharge read a submission requesting the Rajya Sabha Chairman to revoke the suspension of 12 MPs from the House for the entire winter session.
“I request you to revoke the suspension of 12 members of the House.”
Kharge also pointed out that he was not allowed to raise a point of order and it is a gross violation of the rule. He also said that the members should be named before issuing suspension orders against them.
But Naidu rejected the request for revocation of suspension. The 12 MPs were suspended on account of ‘unruly and violent behaviour’ during the monsoon session of Parliament. They include six from Congress, two each from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Shiv Sena and one each from CPM and CPI.
Following this, the opposition leaders held a protest at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Parliament.
“We have boycotted the Lok Sabha proceedings for the remaining day in protest against the suspension of 12 Rajya Sabha MPs,” Congress general secretary KC Venugopal told ANI.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, meanwhile, said the opposition MPs will not ‘apologise’ as they were raising people’s issues in Parliament.
“Why apologize? To raise people’s issues in Parliament? No, not at all!”
The suspended MPs are Elamaram Kareem (CPM), Phulo Devi Netam, Chhaya Verma, R Bora, Rajamani Patel, Syed Nasir Hussain and Akhilesh Prasad Singh of the Congress, Binoy Viswam of CPI, Dola Sen and Shanta Chhetri of Trinamool Congress, Priyanka Chaturvedi and Anil Desai of Shiv Sena.
