Pegasus row: Rajya Sabha chairman suspends six Trinamool MPs

Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu suspended six Trinamool Congress MPs on Wednesday (August 4) when they entered the well of the house and displayed placards demanding probe into the Pegasus snooping scandal.

Dola Sen, Nadimul Haque, Abir Ranjan Biswas, Shanta Chhetri , Arpita Ghosh and Mausam Noor are the names of parliamentarians who have been suspended for a day.

As soon as the protesting MPs entered the well of the House with placards, Naidu warned them to go back and threatened to act tough. As the members refused to budge, he ordered that those “disobeying the chair and raising placards shall leave the House under section 255.”

The protesters, which included members of other Opposition parties as well, were demanding a discussion on use of Israeli spyware Pegasus to keep an eye on a section of politicians, journalists and social activists.

Trinamool MP Derek O’Brien tweeted immediately saying the protest will continue outside the Parliament at 2pm.

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The two Houses of Parliament have hardly functioned this Monsoon Session with Opposition MPs disrupting the proceedings over Pegasus issue, three farm laws and government’s response to the COVID crisis.

A day before, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the opposition parties head on, saying that repeated adjournments were “an insult to the constitution… to democracy and to the public”.

On Tuesday, Venkaiah Naidu held back to back discussions with Union ministers and opposition leaders to find a way by which the Rajya Sabha could get back to business.

Rajya Sabha has used only 21 per cent of the allocated time this Monsoon Session, which started on July 19. The Lok Sabha’s performance was worse with only 14 per cent functioning. The poor productivity of Parliament is estimated to have cost the exchequer Rs 133 crore.

The Opposition parties are reluctant to let the Parliament function unless the Centre assures a discussion on the Pegasus snooping row. The government has refused to budge, arguing that the Pegasus spyware issues is a “manufactured issue”.