New Delhi: The fortnight-long logjam in parliament took an ugly turn on Monday with the Lok Sabha speaker, Sumitra Mahajan, suspending 25 opposition Congress party lawmakers for five days.
The suspension followed failure of an all-party meeting convened to break the logjam, with the Congress party-led opposition insisting that they would not let parliament function until foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, chief ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh respectively, resign.
The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after the Congress party lawmakers once again walked into the well of the house with placards in hand and shouted slogans.
Mahajan said that she was suspending the 25 lawmakers for unruly behaviour including waving placards and wearing black arm bands and continuously not allowing the house to function.
The Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi termed the suspensions a black day in India’s parliamentary democracy.
The remaining 19 Congress party lawmakers who were not suspended will boycott parliament until Friday. The Congress has received symbolic support from the Trinamool Congress party and the Aam Aadmi Party, the ruling parties of West Bengal and Delhi respectively. The two parties announced that as a mark of opposition solidarity, they would also boycott Lok Sabha for the next five days.
Sonia set the tone for the all-party meeting by making it clear that any debate must follow the three resignations and that the Congress party was not ready to dilute its tough stand.
“Outcome of the meeting is nil, we stand by our demand. Government wants to be the king and they expect the opposition parties to behave like the subjects. Such things do not work in democracy. Democracy is given and take... Government has not taken any initiative. They want to pass bills. At the same time they do not want to take concerns raised by opposition parties on board,” senior Congress party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said after the all-party meeting.
The government offered intervention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi if debate on the Lalit Modi visa scandal and Madhya Pradesh’s recruitment Vyapam scam are allowed to take place. The Opposition wants Swaraj’s resignation for helping the former Indian Premier League chief, Lalit Modi, procure British travel documents and Rajasthan chief minister Raje’s resignation for proposing asylum to Lalit Modi in Britain after he left India in 2011 amid charges of corruption and money laundering in conducting the money-rich IPL cricket matches.
The Opposition wants Madhya Pradesh chief minister Chouhan to step down as well for his alleged involvement in the Vyapam scam.
Swaraj tried to make a statement in the Rajya Sabha amid the din and denying allegations that she recommended to the British authorities travel documents for Lalit Modi.
She broke her silence and said she has been waiting for the past two weeks to make her stand clear.
“This issue about me is being raised for the last two weeks. I had informed through the leader of the house that I am ready for discussion. Since last seven days, I am sitting here every day just so that a discussion may start,” she said.
“But they don’t start the discussion, they just create ruckus. The facts this notice is based on are baseless and untrue... I never requested the British government to give travel documents to Lalit Modi,” said Swaraj.
The suspension of 25 Congress party lawmakers in a way divided the opposition as despite announcing boycott of parliament during the suspension period of the Congress party lawmakers, Trinamool Congress and other regional parties had stated on Monday morning that they favour debate and the Congress party to climb down from its demand.
Some other opposition parties like Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party has already distanced itself from the demand for Swaraj’s resignation.
With the suspension, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led ruling National Democratic Alliance is now in a position to get several key legislations passed in the Lok Sabha. However, the bills are bound to face a roadblock in the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling coalition is in the minority.
The three-week-long monsoon session of parliament is slated to end on August 13 and the government says delay in passing many key bills will impact the Indian economy badly.
