Parliament revokes suspension of Samajwadi lawmakers

New Delhi: The Rajya Sabha revoked the suspension of four unruly members from the Samajwadi Party amid suggestions that the ruling Congress party may have succeeded in breaching the unity of the three prominent Yadav leaders.

While Rajya Sabha had suspended seven lawmakers hours before the Housed passed the contentious Women's Reservation Bill on March 8, a resolution adopted by the House to revoke suspensions yesterday named only four SP lawmakers, with no word as yet on the fate of the remaining three.

SP members Veerpal Singh Yadav, Kamal Akhtar, Nand Kishore Yadav, Aamir Alam Khan were suspended along with Subhash Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Sabir Ali (Lok Janshakti Party and Dr Ejaz Ali (Janata Dal-Untied) for misbehaving the previous day.

They stood accused of rushing, in menacing fashion, to the desk of chairman Mohammad Hamid Ansari and picked up copy of the Bill, tore it up and tried to uproot the mike from his desk, as they protested against attempts to pass the Bill.

Squatting

They had to be physically removed from the House by marshals after they took to squatting on the floor while refusing to leave the House after they had been suspended.

The entire opposition has been demanding the revocation of the suspension which was for the entire ongoing budget session.

The revocation came a day before parliament is slated to go for 26-day recess before it resumes the second part of the session from April 12.

The budget session is scheduled to end on May 7.

Ever since the three Yadav chieftains, namely SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav and the JD (U) president Sharad Yadav joined hands to oppose the Women's Reservation Bill, Congress managers were trying to breach their unity as it had started threatening stability of the Congress-led ruling coalition.

Compared to SP which has 22 lawmakers in the Lok Sabha, RJD has just four. LJP is unrepresented in the Lok Sabha while the JD (U) is a constituent of the principal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.

Mulayam Singh Yadav has already dropped his plans of withdrawing his party's outside support to the government and move in the motion of no trust, indicating a behind-the-scene pact between his party and the Congress.

The two parties had fallen apart on the eve of last year's parliamentary elections due to a failure to reach consensus during their seat-sharing talks.