Ahead of the Winter session of Parliament beginning on December 4, the Congress' Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday wrote to Speaker Om Birla, saying the expulsion of Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra from Parliament is an 'extremely serious punishment and has very wide ramifications'.
What some of our leaders were up to on the weekend.
As many as 14 opposition MPs were suspended from Parliament for the remainder of the winter session for disrupting proceedings, as the Lok Sabha security breach incident snowballed into a major row on Thursday with the government asking the opposition not to "politicise" the "grave national issue" and the Congress, Trinamool Congress and others demanding a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah.
Chowdhury also tendered a written apology to Murmu on Friday for his "rashtrapatni" remark.
Opposition protests over the Pegasus snooping row, farm laws and other issues had continuously marred the proceedings since the start of the session on July 19.
President-elect Droupadi Murmu will take oath of office of the highest constitutional post of the country on Monday followed by a 21 gun salute.
Besides MPs, parliament staff and media personnel, among other entrants to the building, will also be required to undergo the test for the coronavirus.
Opposition parties on Thursday continued their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over inauguration of the new Parliament building and accused him of being 'megalomaniac' and the government of being 'arrogant'.
Modi said the new Parliament reflected the aspirations and resolve of the "new India" to set and work towards achieving new targets.
Joshi said, "(BJP leader) Nishikant Dubey issued a notice to Rahul Gandhi for making baseless allegations (against the PM). What they say has to be supported with evidence but they haven't produced any. We all are answerable to the people of this country. This time action will be taken on this notice."
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said that the President should inaugurate the new Parliament building and not the prime minister.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Harsh Vardhan on Friday alleged that some people with vested interest have 'dragged' his name into a row over certain objectionable remarks made by his party colleague Ramesh Bidhuri in the Lok Sabha.
"Vishguru's latest salvo - D(h)arna Mana Hai!," Jairam Ramesh said.
The Trinamool Congress and the Communist Party of India on Tuesday said they will skip the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building even as the war of words over the prime minister and not the President scheduled to do the honours on May 28 continued between the government and the Congress.
'Meddling with our national emblem was totally unnecessary and avoidable'
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday sought to give credit to his party for the women's reservation bill but Home Minister Amit Shah refuted his claim, saying that the legislation brought by the Manmohan Singh government had lapsed following the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha.
However, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha will use their respective chambers and galleries for the members to seat, as was the case earlier, they pointed out.
The Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in Rajasthan on Sunday, winning 115 seats out of the 199 where assembly elections were held last week.
Asking the Congress members, who were on their feet, to maintain the decorum of the House and not show placards, Birla said they should let the House function.
Amid the row over a new set of unparliamentary words, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor Sunday said he would treat the list as indicative rather than definitive, and 'speak normally' in the House and see whether it is applied in a 'draconian manner' to stifle meaningful criticism.
The Opposition intensified its noisy protests in Lok Sabha on Wednesday over Pegasus snooping, farm laws and other issues with some unruly members even hurling papers and torn placards in the House, but the government went ahead with its legislative agenda and three bills were passed amid the din.
Gandhi had recently alleged in London that the structures of Indian democracy are under "brutal attack" and there is a full-scale assault on the institutions of the country.
As soon as the Question Hour ended, Congress' Leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury demanded that a discussion on the 'Indo-China border situation be held', saying late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed a discussion in Lok Sabha on the India-China war in 1962.
At least four Opposition leaders on Tuesday claimed to have received messages from Apple warning them of "State-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise" their iPhones and posted the purported screenshots on their X handles.
This is the first time that the House is meeting after the BJP's overwhelming victory in the recent series of assembly elections held in February-March.
'With one more year remaining in the term, and 58 average sitting days a year, the 17th Lok Sabha is unlikely to sit for more than 331 days.' 'This could make it the shortest full-term Lok Sabha since 1952.'
A sixth arrest has been made in the Parliament security breach case -- Mahesh Kumawat from Rajasthan's Nagaur who was allegedly in contact with the other accused for the last two years for hatching the conspiracy and had destroyed their mobile phones to get rid of the evidence, police said on Saturday.
However, members requested the government and the presiding officers of both the House to end the proceedings early citing the festive season and New Year celebrations ahead.
MPs from 10 Opposition parties on Thursday wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla saying that the situation at Ghazipur border was like that of India-Pakistan border and condition of farmers resembles prisoners in jail.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday blamed India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's "two major blunders" -- declaring a ceasefire without winning the entire Kashmir and taking the issue to the United Nations -- for the sufferings of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The women's reservation bill is back in focus ahead of Parliament's winter session, with several opposition parties, including the Janata Dal-United, which had once opposed the move, demanding that it be introduced and passed in this session.
Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day on Friday amid an uproar in the House over the issue of law and order situation in Rajasthan.
Gandhi invoked Rule 357 which allows for "personal explanations" and also cited the example of Bharatiya Janata Party MP and then minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who invoked the Rule to give an explanation regarding comments made by Jyotiraditya Scindia in relation to him in Parliament
What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend.
This is the fifth consecutive day that the Parliament has been adjourned without transacting any business since the second part of the Budget session began on Monday due to uproarious scenes in the House.
In the Rajya Sabha, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu could not read out his customary closing remarks that sum up the business conducted in the House during the session, as Shiv Sena and other opposition MPs created a ruckus.
Joshi, however, clarified that he did not support the banned practice and that his remarks were on the tradition of 'Jauhar'.
A witness who is a former army official turned hostile in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast trial in Mumbai on Thursday.
The controversy over a Trinamool Congress member of Parliament mimicking Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar took political centrestage on Wednesday with the issue playing out both inside and outside Parliament and President Droupadi Murmu joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi in expressing dismay.
The situation in Manipur and the Delhi services ordinance are set to dominate the Monsoon session of Parliament beginning Thursday with the Opposition gearing up to raise these issues to corner the government.
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