Backlash against Rahul and TMC as Kalyan Banerjee mimics Vice Prez Dhankhar :::: It's getting worse, quite low !! ::: Total 141 MPs suspended

It's getting worse, and quite low !!

Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar himself reacts angrily to video of TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee mimicking him and Rahul Gandhi taking a video recording !!

"Girawat ki koi hadd nahi hae (There is no limit to stooping so slow)," Dhankhar said in Rajya Sabha after the video went viral and was also telecast by news channels.

A visibly upset Dhankhar said:“Office of Chairman, Rajya Sabha and Office of Speaker is very different. Political parties will have their cross currents, they will have exchanges, but imagine a senior leader of your party, video graphing another member of another party. Mimicry of the Chairman, mimicry of Speaker. How ridiculous, how shameful, how unacceptable.”

Dhankhar was reacting to a clip of the now-suspended TMC MP, Kalyan Banerjee surrounded by other Opposition members mocking the Vice President, while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi filmed him. 
In the clip, Banerjee can be heard impersonating Dhankhar, saying: "my spine is so straight, I'm so tall".

Mr Dhankhar expressed his disapproval calling his mimicry “ridiculous” and “shameful”.

Dhankhar’s remarks come amid continued protests by the Opposition, which has been demanding a discussion on the Parliament security breach that took place on December 13. 

Altogether 141 MPs have now been suspended for unruly behaviour – 95 from Lok Sabha and 46 from Rajya Sabha. Opposition leaders during their I.N.D.I alliance meet also adopted a resolution against the suspension of the members.

"This is an example of how the opposition is sabotaging parliamentary democracy. TMC leader Kalyan Banerjee is mocking the Vice President in the Parliament premises, and Rahul Gandhi is recording the video; nothing can be more unfortunate than this," says BJP MP Rakesh Sinha

49 more Opposition MPs suspended from Parliament on Dec 19, 2023 

A total of 141 MPs have now been suspended in this Winter session of the Parliament.

46 from Rajya Sabha and  as many as 95 lawmakers suspended are from the Lok Sabha.

As many as 49 Lok Sabha MPs, including Farooq Abdullah, Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, Karti Chidambaram and NCP's Supriya Sule were suspended for disrupting House proceedings on Tuesday, Dec 18th.

Opposition members displayed placards and shouted slogans --  “PM sadan mein aao. Gruh mantri istifa do (Prime Minister attend the session. Home Minister must resign).” 

For his part, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said that the Opposition was sulking over the defeat in the recent assembly polls.

Slamming the protesting MPs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said some people are not destined to do constructive work and that if they continue their antics they will not return to Lok Sabha even in the current strength. Addressing the BJP MPs at the parliamentary party meeting Modi is learnt to have told them that they should not get shaken by the theatrics of the Opposition.

** As soon as the House assembled, opposition members were on their feet and some of them came to the Well of the House shouting slogans against the government and holding placards. Some of them were carrying a morphed picture of PM Modi.  Speaker Om Birla said it was completely against the rules, regulations and proprieties to bring placards in the House.

“You may criticise the government but is it proper to stage protests like this. Do you want to set a precedent of such kind of protests. The whole country is watching your behaviour,” he said.

“I strongly condemn the showing of the prime minister's morphed picture. It is complete disrespect to the honourable prime minister. People of the country have taught the opposition a good lesson in the recent assembly elections. They were badly defeated. People have thrown them out. I condemn this behaviour, the whole House condemns this. Action must be taken against those who brought the morphed pictures,” said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi. 

Notably, TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee mimics Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar in Parliament premises.

"PM Modi expressed pain over the incident that happened in the Parliament. Parliament is a place where discussions should be held. Various bills which are important to pave the way for the progress of the country should be discussed in the Parliament,” BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

He also alleged the Opposition party leaders of indirectly justifiying the actions of the young individuals who had jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery, shouted slogans and opened canisters that emitted yellow smoke.

"How can any party that believes in democracy can seek to covertly or overtly justify what happened in the Parliament?..." he said.

"Till today so many MPs have tried to put their views forward in the Parliament. But this time Modi and Shah are not willing to attend the assembly at all. They are busy going to Varanasi and Ahmedabad. They are disrespecting the democracy. The dignity of the House is being insulted. The Speaker and the Chairman of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, instead of protecting the MPs are suspending them arbitrarily," Congress President Malliakrjun Kharge.

Taking a dig at the Opposition party leaders, PM Modi told BJP Parliamentary party meeting that "if the opposition theatrics continue, they will not be able to  come back to power and win in numbers they have today".

'It is not destined for some people to do something constructive,' he said speaking on the Opposition's protest over the Parliament security breach incident. "Some parties in a way voicing support to security breach in Parliament; it is as dangerous as the breach itself. 

Everyone believing in democracy should have jointly condemned security breach in Parliament," he said. 

'We should not get shaken by the theatrics of opposition. We as a party will continue to work to respect the constitution and parliamentary regulation and we will give respect to the mandate,' he said. 

“We had a simple demand that Amit Shah make a statement (on security breach matter) in Parliament. What was the intention behind the action etc. THe BJP knows how to dodge questions and instead raise fingers on other parties. We were just raising matters of national security and that made the ruling party feel insecure. Having a majority in the Parliament should not result in a party becoming arrogant,” said Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Among 33 suspended Lok Sabha MPs, 3 Congress MPs whose cases were referred to Privileges panel

Three MPs – Abdul Khaleque, K Jeyakumar and Vijay Vasanth – were suspended pending report of the Privileges Committee of the House. Their cases have been referred to the Privileges panel. They had climbed on to the Speaker’s podium to raise slogans. All of them are from the Congress.

INDIA bloc loses half its strength in RS, one-third in LS as MPs suspended

Opposition INDIA bloc lost almost half its strength in Rajya Sabha and one-third in Lok Sabha as 78 MPs in total were suspended on Monday for unruly behaviour and disregarding the directions of the Chair.

The INDIA bloc has 95 MPs in Rajya Sabha of which 45 were suspended on Monday. Their another MP, AAP's Sanjay Singh, is behind bars in the Delhi liquor policy case and stands already suspended.

In the Lok Sabha on the other hand, the opposition bloc has a total strength of 133 MPs of whom 46, or around on-third, stand suspended. The 46 include 33 suspended on Monday and 13 earlier.

Full list of MPs suspended from Lok Sabha over security breach protests

Here’s the full list of suspended Lok Sabha members:

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury – INC

T R Baalu – DMK

Dayanidhi Maran – DMK

Saugata Roy – TMC

Kalyan Banerjee – TMC

Aparupa Poddar – TMC

Pratima Mondal – TMC

Kakori Ghosh Dastidar – TMC

Shatabdi Roy – TMC

Asit Kumar Mal – TMC

Sunil Kumar Mandal – TMC

Prasun Banerjee – TMC

E T Mohammed Basheer – IUML

K Navaskani – IUML

A Raja – DMK

G Selvam – DMK

S Ramalingam – DMK

S S Palanimanickam – DMK

Annadurai CN – DMK

T Sumathy – DMK

Kalanidhi Veeraswamy – DMK

N K Premachandran – RSP

Kaushalendra Kumar – JD(U)

Subburaman Thirunavukkarasar – INC

Anto Antony, K Muraleedharan – INC

K Suresh – INC

Amar Singh – INC

Rajmohan Unnithan – INC

Gaurav Gogoi – INC

18:31 (IST)

18 DEC 2023

   

Full list of MPs suspended from Rajya Sabha over security breach protests

Here’s the full list of the suspended Rajya Sabha members:

First list:

Pramod Tiwari – INC

Jairam Ramesh – INC

Amee Yajnik – INC

Naranbhai J Rathwa – INC

Syed Nasser Hussain – INC

Phulo Devi Netam – INC

Shaktisinh Gohil – INC

K C Venugopal – INC

Rajni Ashokrao Patil – INC

Ranjeet Ranjan – INC

Imran Pratapgarhi – INC

Randeep Singh Surjewala – INC

Sukhendu Sekhar Roy – TMC

Mohammed Nadimul Haque – TMC

Abir Ranjan Biswas – TMC

Shantanu Sen – TMC

Mausam Noor – TMC

Prakash Chik Baraik – TMC

Samirul Islam – TMC

M Shanmugam – DMK

N R Elango – DMK

Dr Kanimozhi NVN Somu – DMK

R Girirajan – DMK

Prof Manoj Kumar Jha – RJD

Faiyez Ahmad – RJD

DR V Sivadasan – CPIM

Ram Nath Thakur – JD(U)

Anil Prasad Hegde – JD(U)

Vandana Chavan – NCP

Ram Gopal Yadav – SP

Javed Ali Khan – SP

Mahua Maji – JMM

Jose K Mani – KC(M)

Ajit Kumar Bhuyan – AGM

Second list:

Jebi Mather – INC

Dr L Hanumanthaiah – INC

Neeraj Dangi – INC

Rajmani Patel – INC

Kumar Ketkar – INC

G C Chandrasekhar – INC

Binoy Vishwam – CPI

Sandosh Kumar P – CPI

M. Mohd Abdulla – DMK

Dr John Brittas – CPI (M)

A A Rahim – CPI (M)

"PM Narendra Modi expressed pain over the incident that happened in the Parliament. Parliament is a place where discussions should be held. Various bills which are important to pave the way for the progress of the country should be discussed in the Parliament...

How can any party that believes in democracy can seek to covertly or overtly justify what happened in the Parliament?..." -- BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad 

"Opposition creating hurdles in Parliament is due to their recent electoral defeat. More than this there is an attempt to justify directly or indirectly what some youths did in Parliament (security breach). This is a matter of concern in a democracy".

Ravi Shankar Prasad further says, "...the Prime Minister said that today is the last Tuesday meeting of 2023 for the Parliament. Around 2.5 blocks in the Hall are filled with BJP MPs, by 2024 the entire block will be filled with BJP MPs...The objective of INDIA alliance is to oust PM Modi's government from power but our objective is to brighten the future of the country...".   

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said - "The Prime Minister  spoke about the Parliament (security breach) incident and said that those who believe in democracy should have condemned this incident, but some parties who lost in recent elections are speaking in a language that expresses support to the incident. The PM said this is more dangerous than the incident itself."

  

"This is not good for democracy," says LoP Rajya Sabha & Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on suspension of 92 opposition MPs. 

Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav says, "The way MPs are being suspended it seems they (ruling party) look at Opposition as a non-entity."

"They are living in fool's paradise..." says Ram Gopal Yadav on some saying that INDIA alliance has no strength now.   

On INDIA bloc meeting, TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay says, "The work on seat-sharing should start as soon as possible. Three meetings have been held but there have been no gains till now. Today's meeting should be results-oriented. With the meeting, the alliance should be able to give a message to the public that it can fight and defeat BJP.  

"In today's meeting, we will discuss various things. We need a coordinator (of the alliance), it is not necessary that the coordinator will go on to lead the alliance, but it is important to have one," says Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray.