19 Rajya Sabha MPs, including 3 from Kerala, suspended for a week

New Delhi: Nineteen opposition MPs, including three from Kerala, were suspended on Tuesday from attending the sitting of the Rajya Sabha for the entire week for disrupting the House proceedings.

CPM's V Sivadasan and A A Rahim and CPI's Santhosh Kumar are among those who were suspended.

The opposition MPs, who have been stalling the proceedings since the start of the monsoon session on July 18 over price rise and the levy of the GST on daily essentials, were suspended as they did not heed to Deputy Chairman Harvansh's repeated pleas to leave the Well of the House and go back to their seats.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V Muraleedharan moved a motion to suspend 10 MPs, but when it was adopted by a voice vote, Harivansh read out the names of 19 members who have been suspended for the rest of the week.

While seven of the suspended MPs belonged to the Trinamool Congress (TMC), six were from the DMK, three from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), two from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and one from the Communist Party of India (CPI).

Sushmita Dev, Mausam Noor, Shanta Chhetri, Dola Sen, Santanu Sen, Abir Ranjan Biswas and Nadiumal Haque of the TMC were suspended.

DMK's M Mohamed Abdulla, Kanimozhi NVN Somu, M Shanmugam, S Kalyanasundaram, R Girirajan and N R Elango were also suspended.

B Lingaiah Yadav, Ravichandra Vaddiraju and Damodar Rao Divakonda (TRS) were the other MPs who were suspended.

Harivansh said the MPs were suspended for showing "utter disregard" to the House and the authority of the Chair.

The Chair asked the suspended members to leave the House, but they kept protesting in the Well, leading to two adjournments.

The proceedings were first adjourned for 15 minutes and then for an hour after the suspended members refused to leave the House when it met again.