A total of forty-seven Opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) were suspended for the remaining part of the winter session for “misconduct” and not obeying the directions of the Chair. The motion for the suspension of MPs was moved by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi. When the House reassembled at 3 pm after adjournments earlier, BJP MP Rajendra Agrawal, who was in the Chair, said that the members had been violating rules.
“I move the following with your permission: this House has taken a serious note of the misconduct of Kalyan Bannerjee, A Raja, Dayanidhi Maran, Afrooq Poddar, Prasoon Banerjee, and ET Mohammed Basheer, G Selvam, CN Annadurai, Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary, T Sumathy, K Navaskami, K Ravirasami, NK Premchandran, Saugata Roy, Ashit Kumar, Shatabdi Roy, Kaushendra Kumar, Anto Antony, SS Pallimanickam, Pratibha Mandal, Kakoli Ghosh, K Muralidharan, Sunil Mandal, Ramlimgam, K Suresh, Amar Singh, Rajamohan, Gaurav Gogai and TR Balu in utter this regard to the house and the authority of the chair, including the display of play cards in the House and having been named by the Chair, resolve that the above-mentioned members may also be suspended from the service of the House for the remainder session of Rule 374(2),” Joshi said.
While 31 of them were suspended for the remainder of the Winter Session, three were suspended pending the report of the Privileges Committee. The three-K Jayakumar, Vijay Vasanth and Abdul Khaleque–had climbed on the Speaker’s podium to raise slogans. The matter of suspension of Lok Sabha MPs Abdul Khaliq, Vijay Vasanth and K Jeyakumar has been referred to the Privileges Committee.