Government construction arm CPWD has blamed the Opposition for the muting of mikes during the passage of three farm bills in the Upper House of Parliament. The Opposition parties had alleged the government had purposely muted their mikes to silence any voice of dissent.
It was during the passage of the bills in the Rajya Sabha that a major altercation was witnessed between opposition party MPs and Deputy Chairman Harivansh, who was sitting on the Chair at the time. Some MPs had rushed to his chair and tried to snatch the papers on his table and even broken the mic installed on his table.
Responding to an RTI query, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) said, “It is informed that abrupt interruption in the audio feed of the Rajya Sabha proceedings between 13.05hrs and 13.35hrs on September 20 during consideration of two farmers’ bills by the Rajya Sabha was due to damage to the chairman’s microphones by the Hon’ble MPs.”
“As per the directions of the chair, no other mic was on except those of the chairman. So, when these mics were broken, there was no audio output from the system to RSTV,” it wrote to the Rajya Sabha secretariat.
“The sound system was working perfectly and audio feed resumed when the broken mics were replaced with the permission of marshals and table office,” the department responsible for maintenance in Parliament said.
On September 21, the government had moved a motion via Parliamentary Affairs Minister V Muraleedharan to suspend eight MPs for the remaining portion of the Monsoon Session of Parliament.
The suspended included TMC Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien, his party colleague Dola Sen, AAP MP Sanjay Singh, Congress MPs Syed Nasir Hussain, Ripun Bora and Rajeev Satav, and KK Ragesh and Elamaram Kareem of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The MPs had staged a night-long dharna at the Gandhi statue in protest against the suspension.
The government had lamblasted the opposition and termed the incident “a blot on the conduct of politicians”.
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