Monsoon Session of Parliament: Lok Sabha adjourned after Opposition demands revocation of suspension of MPs

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Tuesday as Opposition members created a ruckus, demanding that Speaker Sumitra Mahajan revoke the suspensions of six Congress members. Opposition members requested Mahajan to withdraw the suspensions, but the Speaker refused to comment on the issue for the time and tried to proceed with legislative business. [caption id=“attachment_3849397” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] As Opposition members created a ruckus, an angry Mahajan adjourned the house for the day. Six Congress Lok Sabha members – Gaurav Gogoi, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary, Ranjit Ranjan, Sushmita Dev, MK Raghavan, and K Suresh – were suspended for five sittings of the house after they tore and threw papers in the house as well as at the chair. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, Trinamool Congress leader Saugata Roy and Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Mohammed Salim urged the chair to withdraw the suspensions. “At times people do things in a flow of emotions. When you were on this side, similar things have happened. We request you to withdraw the suspensions,” Kharge said. Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar, however, said what happened was a “black day” for Parliamentary democracy. He said Kharge should ask for withdrawing the suspension only if he “feels the act of throwing paper bits and paper balls on a woman Speaker was right”. “Can he say it is parliamentary tradition?” he asked. Roy said no one agreed that throwing papers was right but added that the Speaker is a “kind” person and she should forgive the Congress members. “We are celebrating the swearing in of our new president…Kharge has already said you are a kind hearted lady… No one is saying that throwing papers is approvable…” he said. Salim, meanwhile, said the government should be “generous”, and added that the house can function smoothly after the suspensions are withdrawn. Mahajan said she would not speak on the issue at the moment, and asked human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar to proceed with the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2017. Opposition members, however, protested, and amid the din, the angry Speaker adjourned the house for the day.