Suspension will affect even the Bihar elections, says Sudip Bandyopadhyay

TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhayay talks to Abantika Ghosh.

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Sudip Bandyopadhyay

What will the implications of the suspension of Congress MPs be?
My assessment is that this will have an effect even on the Bihar elections, bringing together Congress, JD(U), SP. See, RJD also turned up for the morning protest today. Yesterday’s all-party meeting went on for close to two hours without a decision. Even before that, I was told there was a rumour in the central hall that something like this was about to happen. It is not a wise step for the government. BJP’s floor management I would say, is not rising to the occasion.

Why did the Trinamool Congress stay away from the Congress protest?
We had extended support to a certain level. If the protests continue for 3-4 days, we can reconsider our decision.

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Where do you see all this headed?
The government will obviously take up a few bills without the opposition but it cannot take up constitution amendment bills. Committees’ meetings will be affected, the joint committee on the land bill could not meet today as the opposition wrote to the government not to schedule meetings before August 10.

After the Trinamool Congress refused to ask for the resignations of BJP ministers, the perception was that the party is on the back foot.
We feel that we have better speakers than anybody else, so we wanted to use the floor well ahead of the 2016 state elections. We wanted to keep the government under pressure with interventions.

Does that mean that the Congress does not have good speakers and that is why it is disrupting proceedings?
It does not have that many positive speakers. It is good Rahul Gandhi has come up, Mallikarjun Kharge and Jyotiraditya Scindia are good, but they need many more.

Why don’t you support the demand for BJP ministers’ resignation?
We still believe that discussion should have happened and Sushma Swaraj should have been given a chance on the floor of the House to explain her position. If we were not satisfied, we could have gone back and asked for her resignation. She has denied it in the House. As for Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Chouhan, we think Vyapam is a far more serious matter and it is not good to mix it up with the Lalit Modi controversy.