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In a dramatic, fraught day in Parliament, 14 MPs were suspended in the two Houses, 13 of them in the Lok Sabha, over alleged unruly behaviour that disrupted House proceedings, while demanding a statement from the government on Wednesday’s security breach inside Parliament. It began with the suspension of Trinamool Congress MP from West Bengal Derek O’Brien in the Rajya Sabha, later extended to five MPs in the Lok Sabha, followed by nine more. Later, the name of one MP from Tamil Nadu was dropped, after it was found that he was not present in the Lok Sabha.
Here are the 14 MPs facing suspension for the rest of the ongoing Winter Session.
Dean Kuriakose, 42, is a first-time MP who has faced suspension from the House in the past also. In the 2020 Budget Session, Kuriakose was one of the Congress MPs who were suspended for “misconduct” when they trooped into the Well of the House, seeking the resignation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in the wake of the East Delhi communal violence. Earlier, during the 2019 Winter Session, the BJP had sought strong action against him for allegedly charging towards Union minister Smriti Irani.
Kuriakose had served as the state president of the Youth Congress from 2012 to 2020. He first contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, but lost to CPI(M)-backed candidate Joice M George, who was fielded by the Church-backed High Range Protection Samithi. He tested his luck again in 2019 and won, by a margin of 1.70 lakh votes. Months after the election, the state government announced that Kuriakose had been named in 204 criminal cases registered in connection with a hartal called by the Congress in protest against the murder of two Youth Congress leaders in Kasaragod.
Inside Parliament, he is known for taking up the concerns of farmers. He was in the forefront of the Congress protest against the bid to cover farmlands next to forests as buffer zones for protected forest tracts. In 2020, when the Opposition moved a resolution challenging the three farm Bills in Parliament, Kuriakose was assigned to present the statutory resolution.
Like Kuriakose, T N Prathapan, 63, has also invited the ire of the Lok Sabha Chair on several occasions in the past, with the Speaker suspending him for misconduct during the 2020 Budget Session.
When Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as an MP earlier this year, Prathapan had protested by tearing documents inside the House. Prior to winning the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat in 2019, he was a four-time MLA.
Hailing from the fisherman community, Prathapan’s foray into politics was through the Congress’s student wing, Kerala Students’ Union (KSU), where he climbed up from the local level to state leadership. After serving as general secretary of the Youth Congress, Prathapan worked for a long time in different capacities in the Kerala PCC, including as its general secretary.
Prathapan was one of the Kerala Congress leaders who mobilised the fishermen community under the party banner. He has actively campaigned for environmental protection on many occasions and is a strong advocate of prohibition in Kerala.
Ramya Haridas, 36, is a first-time MP. When elected from Alathur in 2019, she was one of the youngest MPs. Her victory was considered a surprise, as she defeated the CPI(M)’s two-term sitting MP P K Biju by a massive margin of 1.58 lakh votes.
She is the first Dalit woman MP from Kerala. Daughter of farm workers, Ramya joined the Congress via student politics. She was first noticed in 2011 during a talent hunt by Rahul Gandhi, then the Congress general secretary. In the 2015 civic body elections, Ramya contested and won from a division reserved for women in the Kunnamangalam block panchayat, where she served till getting elected to the Lok Sabha.
In the 2019 elections, Congress had fielded Hibi Eden, 40, one of the party’s young faces, denying a ticket to party heavyweight K V Thomas, who was the sitting MP from Ernakulam. Before that, he was an MLA from 2011 to 2019. Hibi is the son of late Congress MP George Eden, who had represented the Ernakulam seat.
Hibi joined the Congress via the KSU, and served as the national president of the NSUI.
Benny Behnan, 71, is known as a key figure of the ‘A faction’ of the Kerala Congress, and earlier served as a MLA for two terms before winning the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Behnan was the convenor of the Congress-led United Democratic Front from 2018 to 2020. A close confidant of the late chief minister Oommen Chandy, he was elected to the Assembly in 1982, but lost successive elections thereafter and remained on the organisational side of the party till his next win in 2011.
Having joined the Congress as a student, he rose to the state leadership of the Youth Congress, and also served as the managing director of the Congress daily Veekshanam. During the infamous solar scandal, Behnan faced allegations of tutoring the accused on how to depose before the judicial commission that probed it.
V K Sreekandan, 53, is a first-time MP from Palakkad, having defeated two-time sitting MP M B Rajesh of the CPI(M) in 2019. Sreekandan, who had been the general secretary of All India Youth Congress Committee, and then a secretary of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, served as Palakkad District Congress Committee president from 2016. During this stint, he was instrumental in reviving the party in the district, which contributed to his win from the constituency, which had been a CPI(M) citadel for long.
He had earlier been a councillor at the Shornur municipality. His wife Thulsi is also a member of the KPCC.
Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, 55, the DMK’s most powerful Lok Sabha MP in Delhi, had her first Delhi stint in 2007 as a Rajya Sabha member.
A significant contributor to various Parliamentary committees, Kanimozhi’s early boost in her political career was due to her lineage — she is the daughter of late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi. Her biggest fall in politics was her alleged key role, arrest and imprisonment in the 2G case, which contributed to the fall of the UPA 2 regime. Kanimozhi maintains a warm relationship with stepbrother M K Stalin , who now controls the party.
Kanimozhi started her career as a journalist, and is the only one in the DMK first family to share her father’s literary interests. A known writer, poet and an avid reader, she is seen as the force behind the Chennai Sangamam festival.
K Subbarayan, 75, is a senior Communist leader, with a career spanning various roles. He is known to raise issues such as social justice, economic equality and workers’ rights, and for his advocacy of marginalised communities, focusing on issues like fair wages and agricultural distress.
So it was no surprise that trade unions and industrialists alike welcomed his victory in 2019 from Tiruppur, a labour-intensive and industrial belt in the state.
Known as Su Venkatesan, the 54-year-old CPI(M) MP from Madurai, who won in alliance with the DMK, is a Sahitya Akademi-winning Tamil writer and cultural activist known for his novel Veera Yuga Nayagan Velpari, which provides an alternative view of Tamil history.
Known for his focus on social justice and political commentary as a Left politician, he also heads the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association. One of the most visible faces among Tamil Communist leaders, most of his literary works delve into Tamil history, exploring themes beyond traditional narratives.
His novel Velpari was widely discussed for its extensive research on Sangam literature and the history of martial arts in Tamil Nadu.
P R Natarajan, 74, is known for his dedication to labour rights and marginalised communities, helping him win elections to the Coimbatore seat twice.
In the Lok Sabha too, he is known to raise issues related to agricultural labourers and the upgrading of railway infrastructure.
His victory from Coimbatore in 2019 as part of CPI(M)’s alliance with the DMK was significant, given the clout in the area of AIADMK leader S P Velumani there, besides a sizable Hindi-speaking, North Indian population among whom the BJP commands a significant vote base.
Manickam Tagore, 48, is known for his advocacy of farmers, labourers and underprivileged communities, especially given that he represents Virudhunagar, one of the most backward districts in India.
Born in Sivaganga in 1975 and educated at Bangalore University, Tagore’s political journey includes serving in the 15th and 17th Lok Sabhas. He became famous as a ‘giant killer’ when, as an unheard contestant, he defeated Tamil nationalist and veteran Vaiko of the MDMK in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. He lost the 2014 polls, before winning again in 2019.
He has held various roles within the Congress and contributed to several Parliamentary committees. He was the AICC in-charge for Telangana, and the one who recommended A Revanth Reddy’s name for PCC chief. Later, he asked the party high command to relieve him, owing to problems with a section within the Telangana Congress unit. He is currently the party in-charge of Goa.
His active social media presence means he is the few popular names from the Congress in Tamil Nadu.
Jothimani Sennimalai, 48, is known for her strong advocacy of women’s empowerment, youth development and social justice.
Her political ascent within the Congress, starting from the Youth Congress, is attributed to her dedicated focus on party work and association with Rahul Gandhi.
Elected in 2019, she is also recognised for her willingness to critically engage with the DMK, her party’s ally, particularly on issues affecting her constituency, like farmer welfare and healthcare needs.
The lone Congress MP from Bihar, the 58-year-old Mohammad Jawad comes from a political family, with his father Mohammed Hussain Azad being a former Bihar minister, having represented the Thakur Assembly segment five times as a Congress MLA.
Jawed made his Assembly debut as a Congress MLA from Thakurganj in the 2000 Assembly polls, having earlier lost in 1995. He retained the seat in the 2005 Assembly polls, and later won from the Kishanganj Assembly segment in the 2010 and 2015 Assembly polls.
Jawed, who has an MBBS degree from a medical college in Kashmir, has never practised medicine though. He made his Lok Sabha debut, after four stints in the state Assembly, in the 2019 general elections, when he was the only Opposition candidate to have won his seat from Bihar — from the Kishanganj Lok Sabha seat in the Seemanchal region, which has about 70% Muslims in the population — at a time when the BJP-led NDA won 39 out of 40 seats. Jawed pipped the JD(U)’s Mehmood Ashraf to second place, with the AIMIM’s Akhtarul Iman a close third.
Earlier, Jawed’s mother Sayeeda Bano had lost the 2019 Assembly bypoll from Kishanganj to the AIMIM’s Kamrul Hoda, finishing third.
Jawed, who also served as working president of the Bihar Congress, is counted among key party leaders, even as he faces a tough challenge in 2024 from the AIMIM’s Akhtarul Iman and the BJP’s Sweety Singh.
A three-term MP, Derek O’Brien is the TMC’s Parliamentary Party leader in the Rajya Sabha. Soon after the Upper House met at noon after an adjournment, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar warned O’Brien against his alleged unruly behaviour. He asked O’Brien to leave the House, but the latter did not relent and instead protested against Wednesday’s security breach incident.
The Chairman then allowed Leader of the House Piyush Goyal to move a motion to suspend O’Brien under Rule 256, which was adopted by a voice vote.
O’Brien did not leave the House even after suspension, following which the Chairman referred the matter of his conduct to the Privileges Committee, asking the panel to submit a report in three months.
Dhankhar and O’Brien have been caught in heated exchanges multiple times on various issues earlier. During the Monsoon Session, O’Brien had almost got suspended from the House after getting into a spat with Dhankhar.
O’Brien, 62, is also known as a TV personality and quiz master. After Mamata took over as the CM following the TMC’s victory in 2011, O’Brien was elected as the Rajya Sabha MP from the state for his first term. He later became the party’s face in the Upper House.
