Crisis deepens: Speaker suspends 25 Congress MPs, Sonia Gandhi digs in heels

So far, the monsoon session has been a washout with the opposition, mainly the Congress, not letting the House function.

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Naming 25 of the 44 Congress members, Mahajan said action was being taken under Rule 374(A) and they will not be allowed to attend five sittings of the House. She adjourned the House immediately thereafter as Congress members staged a sit-in.

The suspended Congress members are Deepender Hooda, Gaurav Gogoi, Sushmita Dev, Abhijit Mukherjee, B N Chandrappa, Santok Singh Chaudhary, A H K Choudhury, Ninog Ering, R Dhruvanarayana, G Sukender Reddy, S Kodikunnil, S P Muddahanumegowda, Mullappally Ramachandran, K H Munniyappa, B V Nayak, Vincent Pala, M K Raghavan, Ranjeet Ranjan, C L Ruala, T Sahu, Rajeev Satav, Ravneet Singh, K Suresh, K C Venugopal and T Meinya.

Visibly upset, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi too did not leave the House for some time and held talks with leaders of other opposition parties.

Sonia Gandhi asked Leader of Congress Mallikarjun Kharge to lodge a protest. Objecting to the Speaker’s action, Kharge said: “Our demand is that the ministers resign. Then everything will be peaceful.”

The Speaker’s action came after several warnings and pleas by TMC leader Sudip Bandhopadhyay and CPM leader P Karunakaran that it would only aggravate the situation.

In the din, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said there was no FIR, no court observation, no prima facie case against Swaraj as well as the two chief ministers and, therefore, there was “no justification” for them to resign. He said the CVC too had not pointed out any wrongdoing.’

“We have not shied away from a discussion and we are ready for it,” Singh said, adding that the opposition has an important role and must allow the House to function.
Before naming them, the Speaker repeatedly told Congress members not to display placards and return to their seats. “Don’t force me to take stringent action… you cannot say they disrupted proceedings, so we will also do the same… we cannot denigrate ourselves further,” Mahajan said.

Bandhopadhyay and Karunakaran urged the Speaker not to suspend the members and allow the two sides a chance to resolve issues. Karunakaran said the BJP too had stalled Lok Sabha as an opposition party for a month and such an action in the present Lok Sabha should be avoided.

As this, the Speaker said if they are ready to take guarantee for Congress members, she could have a rethink.’

Rule 374(A), which the Speaker cited to suspend members, states: “Notwithstanding anything contained in Rules 373 and 374, in the event of grave disorder occasioned by a member coming into the well of the House or abusing the Rules of the House persistently and wilfully obstructing its business by shouting slogans or otherwise, such member shall, on being named by the Speaker, stand automatically suspended from the service of the House for five consecutive sittings or the remainder of the session, whichever is less.”

(With PTI inputs)