‘Conspiracy to convert Parliament into platform for BJP’: Mallikarjun Kharge on mass suspensions

NEW DELHI, Dec 21
As the suspensions in the Parliament reached 146 with three more Congress Lok Sabha MPs being suspended Thursday, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, targeting the BJP, said a “conspiracy is being hatched to convert Parliament into a platform for the ruling party.”
Addressing a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), Kharge said the country is watching how the BJP is “strangulating democracy by arbitrarily passing key bills without discussion.” In an indirect reference to Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar, who has flayed a mimicry on him by a TMC leader as an insult to his background as a farmer and ‘Jat’ (his caste), Kharge said “people holding constitutional positions were becoming part of party politics and engaging in politics of caste and region.”
On the suspension of Opposition members from Parliament, the Congress chief said those responsible for protecting MPs have failed in fulfilling their constitutional duties.
Speaking on the dismal performance of the Congress in the recently-held Assembly elections, Kharge termed the outcomes as “disappointing” and asserted that the party has learnt valuable lessons from its mistakes and was committed to not repeating them.
Top Congress leaders met in Delhi to discuss the party’s plans on seat-sharing with INDIA bloc partners and strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as well as assess the reasons for its defeat in assembly elections in three states.
The discussions took place at a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, which was attended by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi and senior leader Rahul Gandhi among others.
The meeting of the Congress’s highest decision-making body is the first after the party lost Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to the BJP.
Addressing the party leaders at the CWC meet, Kharge said the Lok Sabha polls were not too far as he urged all to concentrate on actionable points. He added that Congress leaders want Rahul Gandhi to undertake another Bharat Jodo Yatra from east to west and that the final decision rested upon the former Congress chief. Earlier in the day, INDIA bloc MPs marched from Parliament to Vijay Chowk to protest the suspension of opposition lawmakers, with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge asserting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had violated parliamentary privilege by not speaking on the security breach issue inside the House.