 "parliament dhankhar")
The government suspended a total of 14 Members of Parliament (MPs) on Thursday for the remainder of the winter session. They disrupted parliamentary proceedings, demanding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah make a statement on Wednesday’s security breach.
The Opposition termed the suspension of MPs as dictatorial and insisted that Parliament should discuss the security breach before addressing other matters. It also questioned why no action was taken against Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Mysuru MP Pratap Simha, who had signed the visitors’ passes for the two men jumping off visitors’ gallery inside the Lok Sabha (LS) chambers.
The government said that a high-level inquiry had been ordered into the security breach and urged the Opposition not to politicise it.
Regarding Simha’s conduct, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi noted that the probe would reveal the truth, but MPs often facilitate such passes on “goodwill”.
Delhi Police suspended eight of its security officials deputed to Parliament security for Wednesday's incident. A Delhi court sent the four accused — Sagar Sharma (26) and Manoranjan D (34), who had jumped off the gallery, and Amol Shinde (25) and Neelam Devi (37), who had protested outside Parliament premises — to seven days in police custody.
Delhi Police has booked the four under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Sections of the Indian Penal Code. It informed the court that the security breach was a well-planned conspiracy. Their accomplice Vishal, in whose house the accused stayed before reaching Parliament, was detained later from Gurugram, while Lalit Jha, a Kolkata-based teacher identified as a key conspirator, is on the run, according to police sources.
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On Wednesday at 1 pm, Manoranjan and Sagar jumped off the visitors’ gallery, shouting slogans and setting off canisters that spewed yellow smoke before being subdued by Opposition MPs and handed over to security officials. Around the same time, their associates Neelam and Amol released canisters with yellow smoke outside Parliament premises and shouted slogans like ‘tanashahi nahi chalegi’, ‘Jai Bhim’, ‘Bhagat Singh Zindabad’, and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.
Police sources have stated that the four were members of a Bhagat Singh Fan Club social media page and claimed they were protesting the unemployment situation and other issues facing the country.
In a letter, Congress President and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge urged Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar to allow a discussion on a “grave matter” such as the security breach under Rule 267.
Kharge asked Dhankhar to refrain from taking up any other business in the House and to keep the proceedings limited to the discussion on the security breach. The Congress president ruled out the Opposition attending any meeting to “sort out this matter” in any other manner. The Congress termed the suspension of Opposition MPs as a “murder of democracy” and accused the BJP government of reducing Parliament to a “rubber stamp”.
Of the 14 MPs suspended, Derek O’Brien of the Trinamool Congress is a Rajya Sabha (RS) member, while 13 are LS members, including nine from the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK’s) Kanimozhi. The government initially suspended 14 LS MPs but withdrew the suspension of DMK’s S R Parthiban when the Opposition pointed out that he wasn’t even present during Thursday’s proceedings. In the RS, the Chair referred O'Brien’s case to the Privileges Committee as he was present in the House after he was suspended.
A day after the breach, security was enhanced in and around Parliament. While visitors’ entry was discontinued, a large group of students from Gujarat’s tribal region of Dang met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament House.
Sources said that Modi, in a meeting with some ministers in the Parliament complex, underlined the sensitivity of the security breach issue and advised his ministerial colleagues not to engage in political squabbling with Opposition leaders over the matter. Sources said Simha has also put across his defence to Joshi, saying he knew the father of one of the accused, Manoranjan D. His father would visit the MP’s local office, they added.
Opposition MPs, such as Congress’ Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, and others, said the security breach has put into sharp focus the issue of unemployment in the country and exposed the chinks in the security armour.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya said it was “obvious” that the DNA of those who entered LS is inextricably linked to the “Congress-Communist axis” who were part of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra and “active participants in the orchestrated protests seen in the past”.
