Papers hurled at Amit Shah, MPs stage protests in Lok Sabha

THe Lok Sabha on wed witnessed vigorous protests by the oppositeness that nearly led to a tussle betwixt authorities ministers and senior Opposition leaders prompted the entry of 15 marshals, and forced Union home minister Amit Shah to change his seat during the introduction of three bills that seek to bar ministers, chief ministers or the Prime Minister from holding office after being arrested for serious crimes.When Shah tried to introduce the 130th constitution amendment bill and two other related bills at 2pm, a number of Opposition MPs, especially from Trinamool Congress (TMC), rushed to the Well to protest against the proposed law, even as a verbal duel started between the minister and some Opposition leaders over the merit of the bill. Soon, things took a turn for the worse.Congress leader KC Venugopal tore apart a copy of the bill as he accused the government of trying to target the Opposition. TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee, who was standing in front of Shah, turned around and tried to use the home minister’s microphone to oppose the bill.Soon, a few other TMC MPs came close to Shah and started throwing papers in front of the minister. Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju, who was seated on the second row, rushed to stand between the protestors and Shah. Minister of state Ravneet Singh Bittu also came running down. Bittu later told HT that the Opposition committed a shameful act and even blamed the “infighting” in the TMC for the aggravated situation that saw different leaders of TMC protesting in their own way.Bittu said, “I rushed because I feared they might harm our home minister.” The TMC later alleged that some of the women MPs were “assaulted” by Rijiju and Bittu. “MP Mitali Bag confirmed this to the media. Also, Satabdi Roy was pushed and heckled,” a leader aware of the matter said. The Bharatiya Janata Party refuted these allegations.At 3 pm, when the House reassembled after an adjournment, Shah sat in the fourth row and introduced the bill amid another round of protests. At least 15 marshals also came inside the House and as soon as the protests restarted, they rushed to the well to protect the treasury bench. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla sent them back as the Opposition raised objections over their deployment.The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, said, “There is a lot of action going on about the new bill that the BJP is proposing. We are going back to medieval times when the king could just remove anybody at will. There’s no concept of what an elected person is. He doesn’t like your face, so he tells ED to put a case, and then a democratically elected person is wiped out within 30 days.”West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said, “I condemn the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill, proposed to be tabled, by the Government of India today. I condemn it as a step towards something that is more than a super- Emergency, a step to end the democratic era of India for ever. This draconian step comes as a death knell for democracy and federalism in India.”TMC’s Mahua Moitra took jibes at Shah for sitting in a middle row. “India watched how Amit Shah did not have courage to sit in his own seat to bring in his Unconstitutional Amendment. Even with 20 extra marshals protecting him, he cowardly sat in fourth row!”To be sure, when the Women’s Reservation Bill was first introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2010, similar protests had erupted in the Upper House. It is not the first time that a minister sat in a middle row to table a contentious bill to avoid any harm or escalation of protests.