On Monday, the opposition accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of attacking democracy after a record 78 MPs were suspended in one day.
The governing BJP has accused the opposition leaders of deliberately disrupting parliament proceedings.
Six people have been arrested so far in the case, with police charging the four protesters under a stringent anti-terror law.
Police have not officially disclosed a motive, but media reports and the families of the accused have said the protesters were unemployed and wanted to express their frustration with the government’s policies
Most of the suspended MPs are part of the INDIA alliance, a coalition of opposition parties that hopes to take on Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in next year’s general election.
The alliance has 142 MPs in the 543-member Lok Sabha - the lower house of parliament - of which 95 have now been suspended. It has 101 MPs in the 250-member upper house or Rajya Sabha (a few seats are vacant) - of these, 46 have been suspended.
Some opposition MPs including Mr Kharge have alleged that the government has deliberately suspended many opposition leaders to pass important bills without debate.
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Nationalism and jingoism and, more recently, anti-terror laws – how democracies die.
So uh, that seems wildly and obviously anti-democratic…
Pretty obviously a bad look when protesters get accused of terrorism
India, worlds largest un-democracy.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
India’s parliament has witnessed heated protests after 49 more opposition MPs were suspended, taking the total number of barred lawmakers to 141.
On Monday, the opposition accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of attacking democracy after a record 78 MPs were suspended in one day.
“Unfortunately, we have to start writing obituaries for parliamentary democracy in India,” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday after being suspended.
Police have not officially disclosed a motive, but media reports and the families of the accused have said the protesters were unemployed and wanted to express their frustration with the government’s policies.
Mr Shah has also not spoken in parliament, but said at an event that a high-level enquiry had been ordered into the incident and accused the opposition of politicising the security breach.
But federal minister Piyush Goyal, who on Monday moved a motion to suspend 34 MPs in the upper house, called the opposition’s protest a “pre-planned strategy” to disrupt the functioning of parliament and block important bills.
The original article contains 631 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
