New Delhi: Three INDIA bloc MPs appointed by President Droupadi Murmu to assist pro-tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab in administering oaths to the newly-elected Lok Sabha members are set to turn down the role. This will likely deepen the rift between the government and the Opposition ahead of the Parliament session.
ThePrint has learnt that the Congress’s Kodikunnil Suresh, TMC’s Sudip Bandyopadhyay and DMK’s TR Baalu are the three MPs appointed by the President to assist Mahtab who are pulling out of the panel.
The other members of the panel are BJP’s Radha Mohan Singh and Faggan Singh Kulaste.
“All the three INDIA bloc MPs have pulled out,” a senior MP told ThePrint.
The INDIA bloc has been aggressively opposing the government’s decision to appoint Mahtab, a BJP MP, as the pro-tem Speaker, overlooking the Congress’s Suresh, an eight-term MP. The Congress and the CPI(M) have also alleged that Suresh has been overlooked owing to his Dalit status.
The government has maintained that it did not violate Parliamentary conventions by appointing Mahtab as he has the longest uninterrupted tenure among all the members elected to the 18th Lok Sabha, the first session of which begins on 24 June.
Apart from the appointment of the pro tem Speaker, the Congress-led INDIA bloc has made it clear that opposing the criminal laws will be on the top of its agenda in the upcoming session of the Parliament, along with the issues of NEET irregularities, NET cancellation, railway accidents, and stock market fluctuations allegedly linked to the exit polls, among others.
On Saturday, the Congress demanded that the three criminal laws, which are slated to come into force from 1 July, be re-examined by the Standing Committee on Home Affairs in the 18th Lok Sabha.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said the laws were enacted by “bulldozing” them through the Parliament in the last winter session of the House.
The Congress’s statement that it will oppose the enforcement of the laws without another round of review came a day after West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee made a similar demand in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The Indian National Congress is of the firm opinion that this date (1 July) should be deferred so as to enable a thorough review and re-examination by the reconstituted Standing Committee on Home Affairs which should have more extensive and meaningful consultations with various legal experts and organisations who have serious concerns on the three laws as they stand, thereafter by the 18th Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha as well,” Ramesh said in a statement.
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‘Bulldozed Bills’
The Bills for three laws were passed in the Parliament at a time when 146 Opposition MPs, including 100 from the Lok Sabha, were suspended after they demanded a statement from Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the security breach in the House.
Before their passage in the Parliament, the Bills were also placed before the previous Standing Committee on Home Affairs. Eight Opposition MPs — four from the Congress and two each from the TMC and DMK — had submitted their dissent notes then.
The three laws, which received assent from the President on 25 December, 2023, are the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023; the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023; and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. They will replace the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Indian Evidence Act.
“Earlier the Bills had been bulldozed through the Standing Committee on Home Affairs without detailed interactions with stakeholders across the country and completely ignoring the written and very detailed dissent notes of a number of MPs belonging to different political parties, including the Indian National Congress, who were members of the Standing Committee,” said Ramesh.
In her letter to the PM, Banerjee said the enforcement of the laws be deferred for fresh Parliamentary deliberation and scrutiny. She had a meeting with former Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who authored one of the eight dissent notes, in Kolkata Thursday.
“Given the wide-ranging reservations expressed in the public domain regarding the hurriedly passed new laws, fresh Parliamentary review of these attempts would demonstrate a commitment to democratic principles and foster greater transparency and accountability in the legislative process,” she wrote.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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