AAP member Bhagwant Mann, who was held guilty by a parliamentary panel of putting the security of Parliament House at risk, was on Friday suspended from the Lok Sabha for the remainder of the Winter Session. The House approved a motion put by Kirit Somaiya, who headed the 9-member committee probing the videography issue, after it tabled the report on Thursday.
“That the House having taken note of the report of the committee to inquire into the improper conduct of a member of the Lok Sabha accepts the findings and recommendations of the committee that Bhagwant Mann has committed a highly objectionable act which is unbecoming of a member of the House and that he may be suspended from the membership of the House for the remaining period of the current session...,” the motion read. The committee in its report had held that the conduct of 43-year-old Mann, who had landed in a controversy in July after live-streaming from Parliament House on social media, was “highly objectionable” which showed him “bereft of basic knowledge, etiquettes and responsibilities of the office he holds”.
Meanwhile, AAP on Friday claimed the move appeared to be pre-planned with MPs belonging to BJP, Shiromani Akali Dal and Congress coming together to award the stringent punishment.
AAP said the suspension was also an attempt to “silence the voice of smaller parties” in Parliament through an “act of miscarriage of justice”.
“It is a sad day for parliamentary democracy in India, since an elected MP has been deprived from raising issues of the voters who elected him for two sessions, without any justification.
“It is highly regrettable that the motion to suspend Bhagwant Mann was adopted in the din when the Lok Sabha was not in order,” the party said.
Interestingly, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal had announced that Mann would take on Punjab’s deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal from Jalalabad in the upcoming Punjab Assembly polls.
Mann has been under suspension for the act since the Monsoon session.