The Evening Wrap: Four Congress members suspended from Lok Sabha

Four Congress members of the Lok Sabha — Manickam Tagore, T.N. Prathapan, Jothimani and Ramya Haridas — were suspended from the House for the rest of the Monsoon Session under Rule 374 for obstructing the proceedings of the House on Monday. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, termed the action an attempt to “muzzle the Opposition’s voice”. This came after Speaker Om Birla had warned earlier, again on Monday, that MPs who brought placards into the House will not be allowed to participate in the proceedings, before he adjourned the House till 3 p.m. The House proceedings had convened at 2 p.m. on Monday due to the swearing-in ceremony of President Droupadi Murmu in the Central Hall of Parliament in the morning. When the House convened, Opposition members, demanding a discussion on price rise and levying of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on essentials, protested waving placards and raising slogans, some even in the well of the House. “I urge members to stop bringing placards into the House; the government is ready to hold a discussion and I will allow the discussion but waving of placards is not allowed,” said Birla. “Any member who brings placards into the House will not be allowed to take part in the House proceedings. This is the temple of democracy, it is the responsibility of the members to maintain the dignity of the House. If you [Opposition] want to hold a discussion then I am ready for it. If MPs only want to show placards in the House, then they can do so outside the House after 3 p.m.,” he added, before adjourning the House till 3 p.m. At 3 p.m., Rajendra Agrawal occupied the Chair, and proceeded with first papers being laid on the table, and then matters under 377 taken up, all the while Opposition members continued to protest and wave placards asking for a debate on price rise. Agrawal then repeated the warning issued by Birla, and named the four Congress MPs under Rule 374. At this, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi read out a resolution that the Opposition MPs’ behaviour, despite warnings by the Speaker, should attract suspension. Agrawal then put the matter to vote, and suspended the MPs for the entire session. Agrawal then asked the suspended members to leave the House before adjourning the Lok Sabha for the day. After the four Lok Sabha members of the Congress were suspended, they moved to the Mahatma Gandhi statue with posters and placards and continued to protest. “For the past six days, we have been asking for a discussion on price rise but the government is running away from it. And now having us suspended for raising people’s issues, it seems they want to silence the voices of protests,” Manickam Tagore said, adding that they would continue to protest at the Gandhi statue every day. Chowdhury told The Hindu that the Opposition MPs were “forced” to troop into the well of the House, carry placards and raise slogans to “wake up the government from its slumber”. “There is no middle path here. We will not apologise and will continue to raise our demand for a discussion on inflation and GST on the floor of the House until the government agrees to it. The government is trying to muzzle the Opposition's voice,” Chowdhury said. Pralhad Joshi defended the suspension of the four MPs saying they had shown a lack of respect for the chair and created a ruckus in the Lok Sabha by violating the laws while asserting that the government was ready for a discussion on price rise. “The Congress MPs’ action shows that they don’t respect the Chair and the House. The action taken against them is appropriate,” he said. Uddhav loyalists approach SC to freeze ECI proceedings on recognising the ‘real’ Shiv Sena Loyalists of Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray have approached the Supreme Court to freeze the proceedings before the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a plea by filed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde for recognition as the “real” Shiv Sena with right to use the party symbol of ‘bow and arrow’. An application filed by the Thackeray camp alleged that the ECI did not pay heed to their request to stop its proceedings as the multifaceted issue, starting from the breaking away of the Shinde group to the resignation of Thackeray as Chief Minister and its aftermath, was already in its entirety being examined by the Supreme Court. The Thackeray camp said the ECI had issued notice to their faction on July 22 despite being told that the apex court had orally sought status quo in the issue in order to avoid any irreversible changes while the court was seized of the case. “Despite being asked not to precipitate the matter and stay its hand, the Hon’ble ECI has decided to initiate proceedings… Such proceedings will be in the teeth of settled law that an inquiry into a matter which is sub judice before the court amounts to interference with the judicial proceedings,” the application said. The Thackeray faction has now urged the court to include the ECI as a party in the case. On July 20, a Bench led by the Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana had queried whether the dissent of Shinde’s faction, without subsequently forming a new party or merging with another, amounted to a “split” from the original Shiv Sena party. A “split” from the original political party without a subsequent merger with another party or formation of a new faction is no longer a defence from disqualification under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution. While agreeing to look into this question in depth, the apex court had asked the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker to maintain status quo on the disqualification proceedings against MLAs from both the Shinde and Thackeray factions. The latter group was issued disqualification notices by the Speaker after voting against Mr. Shinde in the floor test. The court had directed the Assembly Secretariat to keep its records in safe custody. Linking electoral roll to Aadhaar: SC asks Randeep Surjewala to approach High Court The Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene in a petition filed by Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala challenging amendments in the election laws allowing electoral roll data to be linked to Aadhaar. The Election Laws (Amendment) Act of 2021 requires a person to use the Aadhaar number to establish or authenticate identity on the electoral rolls. A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked the counsel for Surjewala to move the High Court concerned. The lawyer said elections were due in several States and the issue required an authoritative judgment from the Supreme Court to ensure uniform applicability of the law. The Bench said if multiple petitions were filed later on, a request could be made then to club and transfer them to the Supreme Court. Surjewala had argued that the linking would “infringe upon the fundamental right of privacy of citizens and is unconstitutional and ultra vires the Constitution”. “Linking of Aadhaar data with Electronic Electoral Photo Identity Card data will allow the personal and private data of voters to be available to a statutory authority and shall impose a limitation on the voters, i.e., the voters will now have to establish their identity before the Electoral Registration Officer by furnishing their respective Aadhaar details,” the petition had argued. It had contended that the situation would further be aggravated by the fact that at present there were no laws to protect the data of citizens. It claimed the amendment may even enable voter profiling. Partha Chatterjee’s health stable, asked to get discharged from AIIMS Bhubaneswar West Bengal Commerce and Industries Department Minister Partha Chatterjee, who is embroiled in alleged School Service Commission (SSC) job scam, was asked to get discharged as his condition was stable, said AIIMS Bhubaneswar on July 25. Chatterjee was flown to AIIMS-Bhubaneswar after Calcutta High Court had ordered to shift him to AIIMS-Bhubaneswar after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) objected his admission in SSKM Hospital on July 23. The TMC leader was arrested by the ED on July 23 and subsequently he was sent to two-day custody of the agency. The Minister, however, complained of uneasiness. He had to be admitted to SSKM hospital basin on a local court’s order. The ED approached Calcutta High Court against local court’s order. The TMC leaders underwent various tests at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar while ED officials kept waiting in the premier hospital. “He (Partha Chatterjee) was having problems because of his chronic illness. We investigated and the report has been submitted to the High Court, there was not much chest pain. He is in stable condition and has been advised to get discharged today,” said Ashutosh Biswas, Executive Director of AIIMS Bhubaneswar. The ED was informing the Calcutta High Court about Chatterjee’s health condition through video conferencing. Earlier in the morning, the TMC leader was booed at AIIMS-Bhubaneswar with some people shouting ‘chor chor’ even as he was shifted to hospital. Myanmar junta executes four democracy activists Myanmar’s military authorities have executed four democracy activists accused of helping carry out “terror acts”, state media said on Monday, the Southeast Asian nation’s first executions in decades. Sentenced to death in January in a closed-door trial, the four men had been accused of helping militias to fight the army that seized power in a coup last year and unleashed a bloody crackdown on its opponents. Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration outlawed by the ruling military junta, condemned the reported executions. “Extremely saddened...condem the junta’s cruelty with strongest terms if it’s the case,” the NUG president’s office spokesman Kyaw Zaw told Reuters via message. Among those executed were democracy figure Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Jimmy, and former lawmaker and hip-hop artist Phyo Zeya Thaw, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said. Kyaw Min Yu, 53, and Phyo Zeya Thaw, a 41-year-old ally of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, lost their appeals against the sentences in June. The two others executed were Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw. Thazin Nyunt Aung, the wife of Phyo Zeyar Thaw, said she had not been told of her husband’s execution. The four had been charged under the counter-terrorism law and the penal code and the punishment was carried out according to prison procedure, the paper said, without elaborating. Previous executions in Myanmar have been by hanging. An activist group, the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), said Myanmar’s last judicial executions were in the late 1980s. A military spokesman did not immediately respond to telephone calls to seek comment. In Brief Droupadi Murmu takes oath as 15th President of India Droupadi Murmu took oath of office as the 15th President of India on Monday and created history by being the first tribal head of State and the second woman to occupy the country’s highest constitutional post. “That I attained the post of President is not my personal achievement, it is the achievement of every poor person in India. My election is a proof of the fact that the poor in India can have dreams and fulfil them too,” said Madam President after being sworn in by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N V Ramana at Parliament’s Central Hall. Sri Lanka restricts fuel imports for next 12 months Sri Lanka will restrict fuel imports for the next 12 months because of a severe shortage of foreign exchange, its energy minister said on July 25, as the island nation’s new government seeks to find a way out of a crippling economic crisis. The country of 22 million has been grappling with a lack of essentials, including fuel and medicines, for months, after its foreign exchange reserves ran dry because of economic mismanagement and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Due to Forex issues, Fuel imports has to be restricted in the next 12 months,” Sri Lanka’s Minister for Power and Energy, Kanchana Wijesekera, said in a tweet. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow [logo] The Evening Wrap 25 JULY 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Four Congress members suspended from Lok Sabha [Four Congress members of the Lok Sabha — Manickam Tagore, T.N. Prathapan, Jothimani and Ramya Haridas]( — were suspended from the House for the rest of the Monsoon Session under Rule 374 for obstructing the proceedings of the House on Monday. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, termed the action an attempt to “muzzle the Opposition’s voice”. This came after Speaker Om Birla had warned earlier, again on Monday, that MPs who brought placards into the House will not be allowed to participate in the proceedings, before he adjourned the House till 3 p.m. The House proceedings had convened at 2 p.m. on Monday due to the swearing-in ceremony of President Droupadi Murmu in the Central Hall of Parliament in the morning. When the House convened, Opposition members, demanding a discussion on price rise and levying of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on essentials, protested waving placards and raising slogans, some even in the well of the House. [Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla conducts proceedings in the House amid a protest by opposition MPs during the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament, in New Delhi, on July 25, 2022] “I urge members to stop bringing placards into the House; the government is ready to hold a discussion and I will allow the discussion but waving of placards is not allowed,” said Birla. “Any member who brings placards into the House will not be allowed to take part in the House proceedings. This is the temple of democracy, it is the responsibility of the members to maintain the dignity of the House. If you [Opposition] want to hold a discussion then I am ready for it. If MPs only want to show placards in the House, then they can do so outside the House after 3 p.m.,” he added, before adjourning the House till 3 p.m. At 3 p.m., Rajendra Agrawal occupied the Chair, and proceeded with first papers being laid on the table, and then matters under 377 taken up, all the while Opposition members continued to protest and wave placards asking for a debate on price rise. Agrawal then repeated the warning issued by Birla, and named the four Congress MPs under Rule 374. At this, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi read out a resolution that the Opposition MPs’ behaviour, despite warnings by the Speaker, should attract suspension. Agrawal then put the matter to vote, and suspended the MPs for the entire session. Agrawal then asked the suspended members to leave the House before adjourning the Lok Sabha for the day. After the four Lok Sabha members of the Congress were suspended, they moved to the Mahatma Gandhi statue with posters and placards and continued to protest. “For the past six days, we have been asking for a discussion on price rise but the government is running away from it. And now having us suspended for raising people’s issues, it seems they want to silence the voices of protests,” Manickam Tagore said, adding that they would continue to protest at the Gandhi statue every day. Chowdhury told The Hindu that the Opposition MPs were “forced” to troop into the well of the House, carry placards and raise slogans to “wake up the government from its slumber”. “There is no middle path here. We will not apologise and will continue to raise our demand for a discussion on inflation and GST on the floor of the House until the government agrees to it. The government is trying to muzzle the Opposition's voice,” Chowdhury said. Pralhad Joshi defended the suspension of the four MPs saying they had shown a lack of respect for the chair and created a ruckus in the Lok Sabha by violating the laws while asserting that the government was ready for a discussion on price rise. “The Congress MPs’ action shows that they don’t respect the Chair and the House. The action taken against them is appropriate,” he said. Uddhav loyalists approach SC to freeze ECI proceedings on recognising the ‘real’ Shiv Sena [Loyalists of Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray have approached the Supreme Court to freeze the proceedings]( before the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a plea by filed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde for recognition as the “real” Shiv Sena with right to use the party symbol of ‘bow and arrow’. An application filed by the Thackeray camp alleged that the ECI did not pay heed to their request to stop its proceedings as the multifaceted issue, starting from the breaking away of the Shinde group to the resignation of Thackeray as Chief Minister and its aftermath, was already in its entirety being examined by the Supreme Court. The Thackeray camp said the ECI had issued notice to their faction on July 22 despite being told that the apex court had orally sought status quo in the issue in order to avoid any irreversible changes while the court was seized of the case. “Despite being asked not to precipitate the matter and stay its hand, the Hon’ble ECI has decided to initiate proceedings… Such proceedings will be in the teeth of settled law that an inquiry into a matter which is sub judice before the court amounts to interference with the judicial proceedings,” the application said. The Thackeray faction has now urged the court to include the ECI as a party in the case. On July 20, a Bench led by the Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana had queried whether the dissent of Shinde’s faction, without subsequently forming a new party or merging with another, amounted to a “split” from the original Shiv Sena party. A “split” from the original political party without a subsequent merger with another party or formation of a new faction is no longer a defence from disqualification under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution. While agreeing to look into this question in depth, the apex court had asked the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker to maintain status quo on the disqualification proceedings against MLAs from both the Shinde and Thackeray factions. The latter group was issued disqualification notices by the Speaker after voting against Mr. Shinde in the floor test. The court had directed the Assembly Secretariat to keep its records in safe custody. Linking electoral roll to Aadhaar: SC asks Randeep Surjewala to approach High Court The[Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene in a petition filed by Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala]( amendments in the election laws allowing electoral roll data to be linked to Aadhaar. The Election Laws (Amendment) Act of 2021 requires a person to use the Aadhaar number to establish or authenticate identity on the electoral rolls. A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked the counsel for Surjewala to move the High Court concerned. The lawyer said elections were due in several States and the issue required an authoritative judgment from the Supreme Court to ensure uniform applicability of the law. [Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.] The Bench said if multiple petitions were filed later on, a request could be made then to club and transfer them to the Supreme Court. Surjewala had argued that the linking would “infringe upon the fundamental right of privacy of citizens and is unconstitutional and ultra vires the Constitution”. “Linking of Aadhaar data with Electronic Electoral Photo Identity Card data will allow the personal and private data of voters to be available to a statutory authority and shall impose a limitation on the voters, i.e., the voters will now have to establish their identity before the Electoral Registration Officer by furnishing their respective Aadhaar details,” the petition had argued. It had contended that the situation would further be aggravated by the fact that at present there were no laws to protect the data of citizens. It claimed the amendment may even enable voter profiling. Partha Chatterjee’s health stable, asked to get discharged from AIIMS Bhubaneswar [West Bengal Commerce and Industries Department Minister Partha Chatterjee,]( who is embroiled in alleged School Service Commission (SSC) job scam, was asked to get discharged as his condition was stable, said AIIMS Bhubaneswar on July 25. Chatterjee was flown to AIIMS-Bhubaneswar after Calcutta High Court had ordered to shift him to AIIMS-Bhubaneswar after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) objected his admission in SSKM Hospital on July 23. The TMC leader was arrested by the ED on July 23 and subsequently he was sent to two-day custody of the agency. The Minister, however, complained of uneasiness. He had to be admitted to SSKM hospital basin on a local court’s order. The ED approached Calcutta High Court against local court’s order. The TMC leaders underwent various tests at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar while ED officials kept waiting in the premier hospital. “He (Partha Chatterjee) was having problems because of his chronic illness. We investigated and the report has been submitted to the High Court, there was not much chest pain. He is in stable condition and has been advised to get discharged today,” said Ashutosh Biswas, Executive Director of AIIMS Bhubaneswar. The ED was informing the Calcutta High Court about Chatterjee’s health condition through video conferencing. Earlier in the morning, the TMC leader was booed at AIIMS-Bhubaneswar with some people shouting ‘chor chor’ even as he was shifted to hospital. Myanmar junta executes four democracy activists [Myanmar’s military authorities have executed four democracy activists]( of helping carry out “terror acts”, state media said on Monday, the Southeast Asian nation’s first executions in decades. Sentenced to death in January in a closed-door trial, the four men had been accused of helping militias to fight the army that seized power in a coup last year and unleashed a bloody crackdown on its opponents. Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration outlawed by the ruling military junta, condemned the reported executions. “Extremely saddened...condem the junta’s cruelty with strongest terms if it’s the case,” the NUG president’s office spokesman Kyaw Zaw told Reuters via message. Among those executed were democracy figure Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Jimmy, and former lawmaker and hip-hop artist Phyo Zeya Thaw, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said. Kyaw Min Yu, 53, and Phyo Zeya Thaw, a 41-year-old ally of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, lost their appeals against the sentences in June. The two others executed were Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw. Thazin Nyunt Aung, the wife of Phyo Zeyar Thaw, said she had not been told of her husband’s execution. The four had been charged under the counter-terrorism law and the penal code and the punishment was carried out according to prison procedure, the paper said, without elaborating. Previous executions in Myanmar have been by hanging. An activist group, the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), said Myanmar’s last judicial executions were in the late 1980s. A military spokesman did not immediately respond to telephone calls to seek comment. In Brief Droupadi Murmu takes oath as 15th President of India [Droupadi Murmu took oath of office as the 15th President of India on Monday]( and created history by being the first tribal head of State and the second woman to occupy the country’s highest constitutional post. “That I attained the post of President is not my personal achievement, it is the achievement of every poor person in India. My election is a proof of the fact that the poor in India can have dreams and fulfil them too,” said Madam President after being sworn in by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N V Ramana at Parliament’s Central Hall. Sri Lanka restricts fuel imports for next 12 months [Sri Lanka will restrict fuel imports for the next 12 months because of a severe shortage of foreign exchange]( its energy minister said on July 25, as the island nation’s new government seeks to find a way out of a crippling economic crisis. The country of 22 million has been grappling with a lack of essentials, including fuel and medicines, for months, after its foreign exchange reserves ran dry because of economic mismanagement and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Due to Forex issues, Fuel imports has to be restricted in the next 12 months,” Sri Lanka’s Minister for Power and Energy, Kanchana Wijesekera, said in a tweet. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow  Today’s Top Picks [[Watch | Why is Odisha’s Jalaput Dam an engineering marvel?] Watch | Why is Odisha’s Jalaput Dam an engineering marvel?]( [[Watch | These women in Karnataka make bags that are a hit in Europe] Watch | These women in Karnataka make bags that are a hit in Europe]( [[EU approves smallpox vaccine for use against monkeypox] EU approves smallpox vaccine for use against monkeypox]( [[Explained | Why are Indian sports bodies under scandal and scrutiny?] Explained | Why are Indian sports bodies under scandal and scrutiny?]( Copyright @ 2022, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. If you are facing any trouble in viewing this newsletter, please [try here]( If you do not wish to receive such emails [go here](