19 Oppn members in Rajya Sabha suspended for a week

Nineteen opposition Members on Tuesday were suspended from Rajya Sabha for a week for disrupting House proceedings.

The 19 members include seven from the Trinamool Congress, six from the DMK, three from Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), two from CPI-M and one from CPI.

Suspended Trinamool Rajya Sabha members are Sushmita Dev, Mausam Noor, Shanta Chhetri, Dola Sen, Santanu Sen, Abir Ranjan Biswas and Nadiumal Haque.

Six suspended DMK Members are Kanimozhi N.V.N Somu, M. Shanmugam, M. Mohamed Abdulla, S. Kalyanasundaram, R. Girirajan and N.R. Elango.

Other suspended members are B. Lingaiah Yadav, Ravichandra Vaddiraju and Damodar Rao Divakonda of TRS, V. Sivadasan and A.A. Rahim of CPI-M and Sandosh Kumar of CPI.

Deputy chairman Harivansh said the Members were suspended for showing utter disregard to the House and the authority of the Chair.

The Chair asked the suspended members to leave the House, but they kept protesting in the Well, leading to two adjournments.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V. Muraleedharan moved a motion to suspend the members. But when the motion was adopted by a voice vote, Deputy Chairman Harivansh read out the names of 19 members who have been suspended for the remainder of the week.

The proceedings were first adjourned for 15 minutes and then for an hour after the suspended members refused to leave the House when it met again. Finally, the House was adjourned for the day to meet on Wednesday at 11 a.m.

The Opposition members have been continuously protesting in the House demanding discussion on price rise, inflation, hiked GST rates and other issues since the start of Monsoon Session.