"Opp behaviour is crime against Bharat" ::::: Rajya Sabha members suspended ... include KC Venugopal, Jairam, Shaktisinh Gohil, Surjewala, Sukhendushekhar Roy ::: A total of 78 MPs from both Houses of Parliament suspended

A total of 78 MPs have been suspended today (Dec 18) from the Parliament.

These include 33 MPs from the Lok Sabha and 45 MPs from the Rajya Sabha.

"....I hope you will realise the enormity of our crime against Bharat. It (unruly behaviour by Opposition) is no less than crime against Bharat," Vice President and chairman of Rajya Sabha, Jagdeep Dhankhar said minutes before the motion for suspension of MPs was adopted by India's Upper House of Parliament. 

"The kind of conduct the I.N.D.I.A alliance showed today has saddened the whole country," said Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, who is Leader of the Rajya Sabha.  

Rajya Sabha members suspended 

Goyal also said, "...34 MPs have been suspended. The case of 11 MPs has been referred to the Privilege Committee. A total of 45 Rajya Sabha MPs have been suspended today. They did not want the House to run smoothly, this was their pre-planned strategy...". 

 

Total 46 MPs suspended in Lok Sabha ::: 33 Opposition Lok Sabha MPs suspended for disruptions on Monday, 13 were suspended earlier

On suspension of Opposition MPs, TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay says, "...BJP wants to suppress the Opposition in Parliamentary democracy. They are trying to gag the voice of the Opposition. We will discuss the matter, there is INDIA Alliance meeting tomorrow...All allies of INDIA Alliance will get closer to each other after this incident...".

"So many (opposition) MPs have been expelled (from Parliament), this is dictatorship. We won't tolerate this, and we will keep fighting," says Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi.  

Rajya Sabha MP of Trinamool Congress Derek O' Brien was suspended on Dec 14. 

Lok Sabha on Monday adopted resolution suspending 33 opposition members, including Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, from House for remainder of the Winter Session.  

This comes after continuous protests by opposition members over the recent Parliament security breach and demands for a statement by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the matter.

Congress floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury later said:  "All leaders, including me, have been suspended. We have been demanding for days to reinstate our MPs who were suspended earlier and that the Home Minister come to the House and give a statement (on Parliament security breach)."

He added, "Today, the government has reached the heights of tyranny."

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Saturday denied links between the decision of the House to suspend some members and Parliament security breach incident.

"The suspension of the members is purely to uphold the sanctity of the House," Om Birla said.

While 31 of them were suspended for the remainder of the Winter Session, three were suspended pending the report of the Privileges Committee. The three - K Jayakumar, Vijay Vasanth and Abdul Khaleque - had climbed on the Speaker's podium to raise slogans.

The proposal for the suspension of these MPs was presented by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi in the House. It was later adopted by a voice vote.

In view of the protests by opposition MPs over the Parliament security breach, Lok Sabha has been adjourned for the day.

Notably, on December 14, a day after the Parliament security breach, 13 Lok Sabha MPs and one Rajya Sabha MP were suspended for "unruly conduct" in Parliament.

Manickam Tagore, Kanimozhi, PR Natrajan, VK Sreekandan, Benny Bahanan, K Subramanyam, S Venkatesan, and Mohammad Jawed are among the Parliament members who were suspended from the Lok Sabha. Trinamool Congress's Derek O'Brien is the lone MP suspended from the Rajya Sabha.

Meanwhile in Rajya Sabha

In response to Questions from BJP MP, Sushil Kumar Modi, Union Minister of  State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Statistic and Programme Implementation, Rao Indrajit Singh told Rajya Sabha  as per latest Flash Report on Central Sector Projects (Rs 150 Cr. & above) for the month of Oct, 2023, 1,788 projects are being monitored. Of these 1,788 projects original cost was 24,78,446 lakh cr. & anticipate cost is 29,09,526 cr. A cost overrun of about 4 lakh 31 thousand 080 cr.

• Out of these 1,788 projects, 411 project have reported cost overrun of 4 lakh 52 thousand cr. The original cost of  such project is 6.95 lakh cr. & anticipates cost is 11.47 lakh cr.

• 837 projects have been delayed & cost overrun is 3.39 lakh cr. The original and anticipated cost of these projects is 13.61 lakh cr. &  17 lakh cr. respectively.

• There are 330 projects out of 837 delayed projects for which average time overrun is reported to be more than 3 year. 

ends