With chilli, Lankan MPs outdo our lawmakers

Rioting MPs belonging to the Mahinda Rajapaksa camp had taken away the speaker’s chair to block his attempt to seek a no-confidence vote.

Snatching copies of a Bill from the treasury benches in a House and tearing them up, turning mikes into projectiles, heckling the presiding officer, hurling invectives and exchanging fisticuffs with rival party members—Indian democracy has seen them all and more. So when news broke the other day on a free-for-all in the Sri Lankan Parliament currently in the midst of a messy power struggle, there was mild amusement back home.

Rioting MPs belonging to the Mahinda Rajapaksa camp had taken away the speaker’s chair to block his attempt to seek a no-confidence vote. It reminded one of how DMK MLAs manhandled Speaker P Dhanapal and occupied his chair in the TN Assembly protesting the trust vote sought by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami last year.

Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena had sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe and installed Rajapaksa as PM in a bloodless coup, but the former strongman is short of a majority. It was time for Sirisena’s Plan B, dissolving Parliament and announcing snap polls. But that too bombed as the top court stayed the orders, bringing Parliament back in play.

Plan C then unfolded, targeting the speaker for daring to test Rajapaksa’s strength on the floor of the House. Rajapaksa lost the voice vote twice, yet refused to acknowledge it. The Speaker even needed a human shield for the floor test the second time around.

But what raised the bar of hooliganism was Rajapaksa’s loyalists throwing chilli powder on rivals, which is typically done by conmen. Pepper spray was tried out in Lok Sabha in 2014, but not this. So, when you hear of a chilli powder attack in India, you know whom to blame.

Can we expect better behaviour from our lawmakers, since as much as 36 per cent of MPs and MLAs are facing trial in criminal cases? With experiments like those of anti-corruption activists and technocrats in politics—trying to wield the broom as Arvind Kejriwal did—producing mixed results, the Raja Bhaiyas and Pappu Yadavs will continue to be relevant.

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