It has become almost a norm for parliament sessions to witness unruly and chaotic scenes followed by suspensions of MPs of various opposition parties either for one session or the entire session, depending on the reasoning within the ruling government. In the current winter session, 15 MPs- 14 from the Lok Sabha and one from the Rajya Sabha-have been suspended for the remainder session for \u201cdisrupting proceedings\u201d. The disruption was a consequence of the government\u2019s refusal to have the union home minister Amit Shah address the house on the security breach incident on December 14 when two intruders jumped into the chamber of the Lok Sabha from the visitors\u2019 gallery as the house was in session. They later opened a smoke canister before being held by the present MPs. During the session, the opposition slammed the government for the security breach demanded a statement from Shah. They also demanded action against BJP MP from Mysore-Kodagu, Pratap Simha on whose recommendation the duo got an access pass to the Lok Sabha. What the MPs demanded was legally permissible, conventionally acceptable and constitutional tenable since the government of the day is accountable to parliament to make a statement on a very serious incident that threatened the lives of the honourable MPs and a direct attack on India\u2019s democracy. Instead of taking action against BJP member Pratap Simha on whose recommendation two of the attackers were given pass to Parliament, the government instead suspended the 15 MPs \u2013 14 from the Lok Sabha and one from the Rajya Sabha. The suspension of MPs is not only unfortunate but also questionable. It is a matter of deep concern that the government is exhibiting a total disregard for democratic norms and making mockery of democracy through brute majority. It may be recalled that, on December 8 TMC MP Mahua Moitra was expelled from parliament on allegations that she received cash and gifts for raising questions in parliament sent to their log-in by Dubai-based Gujarati businessman Darshan Hiranandani. Mahua was expelled through dubious process for her dubious deals. But the fact remains that Hiranandani was not summoned for questioning over his allegations while Mahua was expelled without being given a chance to defend herself in parliament. Again, in February this year, the Hindenburg Research report exploded in the corporate and political worlds over allegations that Gautum Adani has been involved \u2018in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades. The issue rocked the government as opposition parties demanded parliamentary probe and discussion through notices issued to the Speaker of Lok Sabha and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. However the presiding officers again refused to allow discussion. Had Prasad Simha not been a BJP but from any other opposition parties, then he would have been in hot soup. Till date he hasn\u2019t been questioned nor suspended by the BJP government. It is a tragedy that parliamentary democracy has been seriously eroded where discussions on people\u2019s issues are disallowed and if some persist, they get suspended. Also laws are passed without debate (or just a symbolic debate), and opinions of Parliamentary Committees are not considered and worse, important Bills were passed either without debate or camouflaged as Finance Bills to get them passed. It is unfortunate that the norm of majority wins in democracy has only given way to majoritarian politics which bodes ill for the nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has become almost a norm for parliament sessions to witness unruly and chaotic scenes followed by suspensions of MPs of various opposition parties either for one session or the entire session, depending on the reasoning within the ruling government. In the current winter session, 15 MPs- 14 from the Lok Sabha and one from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}