INDIA bloc leaders to protest today against suspension of MPs from Parliament

NEW DELHI: After the suspension of 146 MPs from Parliament, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on Thursday that the INDIA alliance protest will happen everywhere on Friday in all the states.

"It's appropriate to protest and all of us will be at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. The INDIA alliance protest will happen everywhere tomorrow (Friday) morning in all the states because we want to show the public that if they'd run Parliament like this and won't listen to the opposition then they are ruining the democracy," said Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

AAP MPs including ND Gupta, Sandeep Pathak, Sant Balbir Seecehwal, and Sanjeev Arora will join the INDIA bloc protest today.

Earlier, Shashi Tharoor said that the moment has come to start writing 'obituaries for the Parliamentary democracy' in our country.

The Congress leader was part of the suspended MPs' march from the Parliament building to Vijay Chowk to protest against the suspension of opposition lawmakers, who were demanding Union Home Minister Amit Shah's statement on the December 13 Parliament security breach incident.

Tharoor, the suspended Lok Sabha MP said, "The message is very simple, in a Parliamentary democracy we are looking at a situation in which the government, whose responsibility is to run the Parliament, is not taking its responsibility seriously."

He said that the Centre showed no willingness to honour the convention of Parliamentary democracy.

"A major security breach occurs, instead of fulfilling his duty as a minister, (Shah), insults Parliamentary democracy by not only refusing to appear in the House, which is his duty, but also going outside and issuing press statements, saying all the things that he could have said in the House," Tharoor said.

"In the conventions of Parliamentary democracy that is the rule. But it wasn't done. So from our point of view, what the government did was unacceptable and showed no willingness to honour the convention of Parliamentary democracy. Secondly, when Parliamentarians demanded the presence of the Home Minister and discussion on the issue, they were instead suspended," he added.

The suspended MP termed the passage of three criminal law bills-- the Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita Bill, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita Bill and the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill -- in the absence of 97 MPs in Lok Sabha, as 'disgrace'.

"It's an disgrace. In fact, just last year, one of the Supreme Court Justices observed that in the absence of legislative debates of opposition criticism and ministerial answers, it would be difficult for judges to interpret laws by understanding their legislative intent. So when even that is not possible for the judges, you can understand what a disservice to the country this government has done by bulldozing these laws through without even any pretence of consultation or discussion with the opposition," he said, adding that it is "truly a moment to start writing obituaries for the parliamentary democracy in our country".