NEW DELHI: As 49 more Opposition members were suspended from Lok Sabha on Tuesday, several MPs lashed out at the Centre, terming Parliament “a graveyard of the Constitution” and drawing a parallel with the North Korean assembly.
With the fresh suspensions, a record 141 Opposition MPs have been suspended since four people intruded into Parliament on December 13. On Monday, 78 members were suspended, including 33 from Lok Sabha and 45 from the Upper House.
The members were suspended for alleged “unruly behaviour in the House” while demanding a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah on the security breach. The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari and Karti Chidambaram, and Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav.
Responding to the mass suspensions, Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that “the graveyard of the Constitution is now visible here”. “Opposition MPs whose job is to raise questions in Parliament are thrown out for doing their job... This is the new India... See it,” Badal said.
Drawing a parallel with the North Korean assembly, Karti Chidambaram said that Parliament is going to be a token house. “We are going to resemble the North Korean assembly. The only thing missing is the synchronised clapping when the PM walks in,” he said.
Tharoor, meanwhile, said that it is “disgraceful, to be very blunt”. “They have no desire to have a democratic system of parliamentary democracy at work. What they are interested in is to have an opposition-mukt Lok Sabha. So, we are seeing a situation where we feel there is no respect for parliamentary democracy,” he said.
As the government took up the three bills that seek to replace the British-era criminal laws, in the absence of a majority of opposition members, Congress MP Manish Tewari said that Parliament has been totally de-legitimised. “This is to lay the framework of passing the most draconian law in Parliament, which will turn this country into a police state.”
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said that “a complete purge is being executed, so that draconian bills are passed without any meaningful debate, and so that the BJP MP who facilitated entry of the two intruders into the Lok Sabha on December 13 goes scot-free”.