New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leaders on July 3 said that the opposition walking out of the parliament was “disrespectful to the constitution” and had set a “dangerous precedent”.
Rajya Sabha chairman and vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar went as far as to say, “I condemn their behaviour. The people of the country will be shocked. It is an occasion where they challenged the Indian Constitution, outraged the spirit of the Indian Constitution and the oath they took. Such a great insult, a joke on the Constitution. I hope they will reflect on their actions.”
The opposition had staged a walkout after Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, was not allowed to intervene during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech even though others had been allowed to speak while Kharge held the floor.
Here is a list of instances where the BJP staged walkouts in the parliament or caused the House to adjourn in its opposition days.
2005
The leader of opposition was L.K. Advani, the occasion: 11 opposition MPs, 10 of whom were from the BJP, had been expelled from the House over “cash-for-query” allegations.
After a five-hour debate and Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders’ prescient advice that “the issue be handled delicately, lest the act of expulsion sets a dangerous precedent where parties look to remove political rivals from legislatures for the smallest of indiscretions”, the BJP and its allies walked out of the Parliament.
2006
Rajnath Singh, then the party chief, had been arrested in Singur in West Bengal and BJP MPs were shouting slogans in the well. When the deputy chairman refused to adjourn the House, the BJP members staged a walkout.
2012
The BJP was accused of disrupting the monsoon session repeatedly and preventing a debate on the coal block allocation scam. The BJP stalled the parliament for six days even as the UPA government expressed its willingness to debate the issue, allegedly to obscure BJP chief ministers’ letters and state governments’ recommendations to the prime minister on the allocations.
BJP later blamed the Congress-led government for a partially washed-out monsoon session by asserting that stalling the government was a part of democracy.
“Not allowing parliament to function is also a form of democracy like any other form,” then leader of opposition, Sushma Swaraj had said, reacting to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement that the BJP’s stalling of parliament was a “negation” of democracy.
2013
The house bulletin had named 20 BJP MPs for violating rules of the house and disrupting proceedings. The BJP responded by walking out.
“The bulletin names members of BJP and TDP in a manner not acceptable in the last three days. Congress members have also violated etiquette but their names are not mentioned,” Arun Jaitley, then leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, had said.
