Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned till 11 am on Wednesday as members of Opposition parties shouted slogans against the suspension of 12 MPs for the rest of the Winter Session of Parliament.
Earlier on Tuesday, Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu rejected the Opposition’s request to revoke the suspension. Opposition leaders walked out of the Upper House in protest of Naidu’s decision.
Later on Tuesday afternoon, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla held a meeting with floor leaders of all parties to resolve the deadlock.
The MPs, all of them from Opposition parties, have been suspended for “unruly and violent” conduct during the Monsoon Session in August. On August 11, Opposition MPs and the government were at loggerheads because of the Pegasus spyware scandal. The chaos in the House peaked as Opposition MPs physically clashed with security personnel.
7.40 pm: Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has written to Chairman Venkaiah Naidu, requesting him to revoke the suspension of 12 MPs, reports ANI.
5.26 pm: The 12 MPs of Opposition parties, who were suspended on Monday, will conduct a sit-in protest tomorrow in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Parliament premises, says Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien.
5.12 pm: Lok Sabha adjourns for the day amid protests by Opposition parties over farmers issues, reports PTI.
4.18 pm: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told the Rajya Sabha that no cases of Omicron, the new coronavirus variant, has been reported in India, reports NDTV.
“We are immediately checking suspicious cases and conducting genome sequencing,” he said. “We learnt a lot during the pandemic... Today, we have a lot of resources and laboratories. We can manage any situation.”
4.14 pm: Union minister Piyush Goyal says the decision to suspend the 12 Rajya Sabha MPs was taken to maintain the dignity of the House, reported ANI.
“The kind of indiscipline we saw in last Monsoon session was never seen before,” he adds. “One Opposition MP tried to vandalise an LED screen, few MPs attacked women marshals.”
4.11 pm: Union home ministry told Lok Sabha that there was no proposal under consideration to carve out a separate Vidarbha state out of Maharashtra, reports ANI.
3.16 pm: Lok Sabha is adjourned till 11 am on Wednesday amid sloganeering by Opposition parties against suspension of 12 Rajya Sabha MPs, reports PTI.
2.40 pm: Lok Sabha is adjourned till 3 pm, reports PTI.
2.28 pm: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla calls for a meeting of the floor leaders of all political parties to hold discussions to end the deadlock over the suspension of 12 Opposition MPs from the Rajya Sabha, ANI reports.
2.24 pm: There is no specific data or study to show any linkage between privatisation of airports or seaports and increase in large-scale smuggling of drugs, the Union home ministry tells Lok Sabha. On the seizure of heroin worth about Rs 21,000 crore at the Mundra Port in Gujarat, the ministry says that the National Investigation Agency has taken up the case.
2.20 pm: The Centre has not yet taken a decision to prepare a National Register of Indian Citizens at the national level, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai tells the Lok Sabha.
2.06 pm: The sales of automobiles have been affected in the past two years due to the spread of Covid-19, Minister of State for Heavy Industries Krishan Pal Gurjar tells the Lok Sabha.
2.00 pm: The Union government will soon introduce a Bill on cryptocurrency, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tells the Rajya Sabha, according to ANI. Sitharaman says that cryptocurrency is a “risky area” and is not in a complete regulatory framework.
1.53 pm: The Centre should resolve the matter about the suspension of twelve Opposition MPs from the Rajya Sabha through talks rather than adopting a hard stance about it, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati says.
12.15 pm: Opposition leaders are holding another meeting, minutes after Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu refused to revoke the suspension of 12 members for the rest of the session, reports ANI.
11.45 am: Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Prahlad Joshi says that the suspended MPs should apologise.
“In order to maintain the dignity of the House, the government was forced to place this proposal of suspension before the House,” he says. “But if these 12 MPs will apologise to the Speaker and the House for their misbehavior, then the government is also ready to consider their proposal positively with an open heart.”
11.30 am: The Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Aam Aadmi Party walk out of Rajya Sabha after Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu rejects their request to revoke the suspension of 12 MPs.
11.25 am: Naidu says the “bitter experience” of the Monsoon Session continues to haunt “most of us”, reports ANI.
He adds: “I was expecting and waiting for the leading lights of the House to take lead in expressing outrage over what happened in the last session. Such assurance would have helped me in appropriately handling the matter, but unfortunately it will not be.”
11.22 am: The Monsoon Session of Parliament, which ended two days before its schedule on August 11, saw several disruptions as the government and the Opposition reached an impasse over discussion on allegations that the Pegasus spyware was used to monitor several politicians, journalists and activists in India.
The chaos peaked in the Rajya Sabha on August 11 as Opposition MPs physically clashed with security personnel.
11.20 am: Rajya Sabha Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu rejects Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge’s request to revoke suspension of 12 MPs, reports NDTV.
“Suspended MPs have not expressed remorse,” says Naidu. “I am not considering the appeal of Leader of Opposition.”
11.15 am: Lok Sabha is adjourned till 2 pm after the Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the National Conference stage a walkout from the House on several matters.
This is the second straight day that the Question Hour has been disrupted due to protests after the Winter Session began on Monday.
11.12 am: The MPs who have been suspended from Rajya Sabha are Elamaram Kareem of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Congress’ Phulo Devi Netam, Chhaya Verma, R Bora, Rajamani Patel, Syed Nasir Hussain and Akhilesh Prasad Singh, Communist Party of India’s Binoy Viswam, Trinamool Congress’ Dola Sen and Shanta Chhetri, and Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi and Anil Desai.
11.10 am: In Rajya Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge says moving a motion to suspend 12 members is a gross violation of rules of procedure, reports The Hindu. He adds that such a motion can be moved only on the day of the disorderly conduct. He urges Rajya Sabha Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu to revoke their suspension, pointing out that members must be first named according to the rules of procedures before moving the motion.
11.05 am: The second day of the Winter Session of Parliament has started.
10.45 am: Opposition leaders at Parliament to discuss their future course of action after 12 Rajya Sabha MPs were suspended for rest of the Winter Session on Monday. The MPs were suspended for their alleged indiscipline during the Monsoon Session.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is not attending this meeting, reports said.
A quick recap of what happened on Monday:
- The Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021, was passed by both Houses of Parliament without debate even as Opposition MPs sought a discussion on the matter. The three farm laws forced tens of thousands of farmers to hit the streets in a year-long protest. Opposition leaders flagged that a discussion was allowed on the five or six occasions when a law had been scrapped. They alleged that the Modi government evaded a discussion to avoid talking about the matter of Minimum Support Price for farmers.
- Twelve Rajya Sabha members were suspended for the rest of the Winter Session for “unruly and violent” conduct during the Monsoon Session in August. Opposition parties said the government’s decision was undemocratic.
- In his customary remarks before the start of the Winter Session of Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government was willing to discuss and respond to all questions. He urged leaders to maintain the dignity of the House during the proceedings.