6 Congress MPs suspended from Lok Sabha
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday suspended six Congress MPs for five days over their "highly unbecoming" conduct. The Congress MPs reportedly tore official papers and threw the shreds towards the chair four times during a parliamentary discussion on mob lynching and cow vigilantism. The House was adjourned and the MPs were declared suspended after the adjournment.
The Lok Sabha Speaker suspended six Congress parliamentarians on Monday for unruly behaviour during opposition protests in the House over growing cow vigilantism and alleged targeting of minorities and Dalits in the country.Parliament?s monsoon session proceedings after the weekend break were marred by disruptions as opposition lawmakers protested in the well of the Lower House and threw shredded papers at Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and the secretary general?s tables.The House was adjourned thereafter and when it resumed at 2pm, Mahajan announced that Congress lawmakers Gaurav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhiranjan Chowdhary, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and MK Raghavan were suspended for five days.She said the members had ?persistently and wilfully? disrupted the House by tearing and throwing papers towards the chair, causing grave disorder.Chaos began minutes after the House met in the morning as opposition members demanded a discussion on a string of lynching by self-styled cow protection groups.Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge moved an adjournment motion to discuss the attacks. But Mahajan declined to suspend the question hour.At this, Congress and Trinamool Congress lawmakers rushed to the well and shouted slogans against the government.The Speaker warned the MPs repeatedly to maintain decorum, but the protests grew as Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) members joined the protesters.?Minorities, Dalits and women are being targeted in the name of cow slaughter. The government has failed to control these barbaric events,? Kharge said.He said the matter needs to be discussed in the House urgently and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Rajnath Singh should be present.The Congress leader also recalled Modi?s warnings to cow vigilantes.?The PM has said thrice that gaurakshaks are goondas (thugs) and his government will take action. But no action has been taken,? Kharge said.Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar tried to pacify the opposition leaders, saying the government ?could discuss the issue in the coming days? if the business advisory committee decides.But the protesters didn?t relent, prompting Kumar to ask the Speaker to take strong action.Trinamool MP Saugata Roy said he had given three notices for a discussion on the topic, but those were not accepted.The din escalated as ruling BJP members tried to outshout the Congress MPs.The BJP?s Meenakshi Lekhi and Nishikant Dubey attempted to corner the Congress over the Bofors kickback scandal, demanding reinvestigation into the Swedish artillery gun deal when former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was in power.