‘Lok Sabha marshals manhandled us’: Two women Congress MPs complain to Speaker

The Congress members carrying placards stormed the well to protest the swearing-in of a BJP-led government in Maharashtra, leading to adjournment of House proceedings.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi leads protest at Parliament. (Express photo by Anil Sharma)

Congress MPs Hibi Eden and TN Prathapan were displaying a banner that read “Stop murder of democracy” inside Lok Sabha. The Speaker asked them to remove the banner but they did not oblige. This prompted the Speaker to order the marshals to remove them from the House, leading to a fistfight of the Congress MPs with the House marshals. MPs Jyotimani and Haridas alleged they were manhandled by the marshals and have registered a complaint with the Speaker.

“We are manhandled by the security staff. There’s no women security staff. We feel devastated, we feel humiliated,” said Jyotimani.

Some of the BJP MPs had tried to intervene but party chief whip Sanjay Jaiswal came to the front and asked them to move back.

Earlier in the day, the Congress said it would stall proceedings in both Houses of Parliament to protest against the Maharashtra standoff. “We will seriously raise the issue of Maharashtra. We will stall proceedings in both Houses. Government is killing democracy from Arunachal Pradesh to Goa, Karnataka and now Maharashtra. We have already discussed with like-minded parties,” party leader K Suresh told reporters after a meeting of the party’s parliamentary strategy group chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi.

Party leader Rahul Gandhi later refused to participate in Question Hour over what he called ‘murder of democracy in Maharashtra.’ “There is no question of asking question (in Question Hour) today. Democracy has been murdered in Maharashtra,” he said when the Speaker told him to ask a supplementary.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court said it will pass its order at 10.30 am Tuesday on the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress combine’s plea against the Maharashtra Governor’s decision to swear in Devendra Fadnavis as chief minister. A bench comprising Justices N V Ramana, Ashok Bhushan and Sanjiv Khanna is likely to pass an order on holding of a floor test.