New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday suspended 33 MPs, most of them for the remainder of the Winter Session, in the face of relentless protests by Opposition members over last week’s security breach in the Lower House of Parliament.
Floor leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc have kept up the pressure on the Modi government, insisting on a statement by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and a subsequent discussion over last Wednesday’s events, when two intruders reached the Lower House and exploded smoke canisters.
The duo, along with two others who were simultaneously protesting outside the new Parliament building that day, and two more who apparently facilitated the intrusion, have been arrested.
The government’s high-level probe and assurances of remedial measures have cut no ice with the opposition leaders who have continued to demand a statement by Shah on “how it happened, and the action taken”.
Congress floor leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, who was also suspended Monday, said in the morning that the Opposition wanted “to talk about the breach in the security of the Parliament, the pass given by a BJP MP (to the intruders), and other loopholes in security”.
Last week, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had suspended 13 MPs over the issue, while Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar threw out Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien for sloganeering and demanding a discussion on the breach.
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