As the opposition parties continued their protest over last week’s Parliament security breach, the Lok Sabha on Monday suspended 33 MPs including Congress leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, for the remaining part of the winter session for their “unruly behaviour”.
Among the 33 MPs, three have been suspended for their “grave misconduct” till the report of the Privileges Committee.
As pandemonium continued, Speaker Om Birla adjourned the House for the day.
While most opposition members demanded Home Minister Amit Shah come to the House and give a statement on the December 13 security breach in the Lok Sabha, several of them demanded his resignation.
Earlier in the morning, Speaker Om Birla highlighted the measures taken to strengthen the security mechanism of Parliament.
He said that probe is underway in the matter and a Parliamentary high-powered committee has also been set up to investigate the security breach issue.
“Maintaining dignity and decorum of the House is the responsibility of every member and displaying placards and raising slogans are against the rule,” Birla said.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “We have been demanding for days to reinstate our MPs who were suspended earlier and that the Home Minister come to the House and give a statement”.
Slamming the government, Congress MP Abdul Khaliq said, “This is murder of democracy. We will continue to raise our voice. We had only sought an answer from the government regarding the security breach incident. We had only asked when the Home Minister would make a statement in the House”.
Talking to reporters outside the House, Union Minister Kishan Reddy said thee a democratic right to protest but that the Opposition MPs went into the Well of the House, with placards, disregarding what was decided in the All-Party meet.
Earlier, the House witnessed repeated adjournments as opposition members continued with their protest demanding statements from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah on the security breach issue.
Despite the disruptions., the House passed the Post Office Bill 2023 and introduced the Telecommunications Bill.
The Union government was also planning to push through the three new criminal codes and the bill on a panel to select election commissioners.
