Rajya Sabha has been adjourned till 3 pm amid sloganeering by the Opposition MPs on Wednesday. Before the House was adjourned, Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra S Shekhawat moved Dam Safety Bill, 2019 in the Upper House. This is the third time that the Rajya Sabha has been adjourned today amid the ruckus by Opposition parties. Earlier, the upper house was adjourned till 2 pm.
As the house assembled after the first adjournment, Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge requested the chair to seek attention over the suspension of 12 MPs. Seeking permission to the Chair to speak only for three minutes, Kharge said: “On behalf of opposition parties, I will seek the attention of the House over suspension of 12 members.”
Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh rejected his plea, saying “he cannot allow speaking on the matter as the issue has already been discussed in a meeting yesterday and decision has been taken”.
Slamming the Central government over the suspension of 12 Opposition MPs, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said the Centre has to realize that other voices in the country deserve to be heard. “The Centre has to realize that in this country other voices deserve to be heard. Parliament is for debate and discussion. You have to allow people to express their views, only then can you truly run a democratic Parliament,” Tharoor told ANI.
Suspended Rajya Sabha MPs on Wednesday sat on a protest near Gandhi statue inside Parliament premises against their suspension from the House for the remaining part of the winter session. Opposition party leaders including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi also staged a protest at the Gandhi statue inside Parliament premises on Wednesday demanding revocation of suspension of 12 Rajya Sabha members.
As many as 12 MPs from the opposition parties were suspended from Parliament’s winter session for allegedly creating ruckus on the last day of the Monsoon Session. The suspended MPs include six from Congress, two each from TMC and Shiv Sena and one each from CPM and CPI.
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.
