Kharge calls on Naidu; ‘suspension to be revoked only if MPs regret’
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, July 28: While the Parliaments stays in a stage of a firm gridlock, the Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu has made it clear to the leader of the Opposition Mallikarjuna Kharge that revocation of suspension of MPs could be considered only if regret is expressed by the erring members of the House.
Kharge, sources said, on Thursday met Naidu and sought revocation of the suspension of Members of Rajya Sabha done over the last two days.
Naidu, while underlining the gravity of unruly behavior by some Members in the House, reiterated that revocation of suspension could be considered only if the suspended Members regret their conduct in the House, sources added.
It may be recalled that the Opposition MPs were suspended from the House for the remainder of the week for showing placards and trooping in the well of the Rajya Sabha.
Sources stated that the government remains firm on the stand that “as per the Parliamentary customs and conventions as codified in the ‘Handbook for the Members of Rajya Sabha’ production of exhibits on the floor of the House is not in order”.
The presiding officers of the two Houses of Parliament maintain regularly that the Members are required to note and observe customs and conventions.
“Rajya Sabha Chairman has been all the while been objecting to the Members holding placards during the proceedings of the House whenever it so happened and urged the Members to desist from the same. He raised this matter in his meetings with the leaders of Opposition and asked them to advise members of respective parties to stop displaying placards,” sources added amid the backchannel deliberations to break the Parliament gridlock.
Sources underlined that the Motion moved today by the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V. Muraleedharan for suspending three Members of Rajya Sabha had specifically stressed on “for the first time …displayed placards this morning”, while listing other acts of disruption.
The other acts mentioned being entering the Well of the House and shouting slogans that disrupted the proceedings of the House in utter disregard to the House and the authority of the Chair.
Sushil Kumar Gupta and Sandeep Kumar Pathak of AAP and Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, an Independent MP, were suspended for the remainder of this week on Thursday.
It may be recalled that Naidu had held a meeting with leader of the House Piyush Goyal, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Palhad Joshi and the Opposition leaders in his bid to find a way out to break the Parliament logjam, which included the House taking up the discussion on the issue of price rise early next week, as the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has recovered from her indispositions following her return from Bali where she had gone to attend the meeting of the FMs of the G20.