Suspension Of 15 MPs: How Is This Democracy, Asks Opposition

New Delhi: The Opposition was up in arms after 15 Opposition MPs were suspended for ‘unruly behaviour’ as they demanded a statement by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday’s security breach in Lok Sabha.

Slamming the BJP government for attempting to stifle the Opposition, MP Kapil Sibal said the government should suspend everybody if it didn’t want the Opposition.

“If they don’t need the Opposition, they should suspend everybody because they don’t want any questions to be asked. We have been saying that the Home Minister should come and explain the situation, tell the people of this country that we all will be safe and take action against the gentleman (BJP MP Pratap Simha) who gave these two (intruders) permission to jump into the House,” Sibal told ANI.

DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi — who is among the suspended MPs – accused the Central government of sparing Pratap Simha but expelling Mahua Moitra without even the inquiry being completed.

“There is an MP who actually gave the passes for these (accused of Parliament security breach) people to come in. No action has been taken against that MP. Whereas we saw what happened in Mahua Moitra’s case. Without even the inquiry being complete, she has been disqualified and this MP is not even suspended. He’s inside Parliament with us,” Kani Mozhi said.

Claiming that the Opposition just wanted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Home Minister to speak in Parliament over the issue, Kani Mozhi asked, “How is this democracy?”

Janata Dal (United) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh went a step further.

“You would have seen their conduct had the two men who entered the Parliament yesterday been Muslims or had it been a Congress MP who issued them passes,” he told ANI.

Congress MP Karti Chidambaram said the Union government wanted to stifle the voice of Opposition.

“Just because we demanded and protested, in order to stifle our voice, 15 MPs have been suspended for the remaining of the session… We want either the Prime Minister or Home Minister to come to the House and give a categorical statement about the events which happened yesterday and the remedial steps that they are going to take for the future,” Karti said.

Fourteen of the suspended MLAs are of Lok Sabha, while Trinamool Congress’ Derek O’Brien is a member of Rajya Sabha.