Shashi Tharoor foresaw his suspension, as he entered the well of Lok Sabha in protest with a placard for the first time in his 15-year parliamentary career on Monday. He took the prediction to X (formerly Twitter), just minutes before he was suspended from the House along with 48 other MPs on Tuesday, for disrupting the House procedures.
The action against the 49 MPs was taken by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, a day after 78 opposition members were suspended from the Parliament. Adding the 12 Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha MP who was suspended last week, a total of 141 Parliamentarians have been suspended so far.
Tharoor was one among the members who sat in solidarity with the earlier suspended MPs, demanding a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah on the recent Lok Sabha security breach. The breach happened on Wednesday, December 13, and involved smoke bombs and protests. It was unfolded on the anniversary of the 2001 attack on the parliament.
In his note posted on Tuesday, Tharoor predicted a suspension and said that it would be a “badge of honour to be defenestrated by an unfair process.”
“For the first time in my parliamentary career of nearly 15 years, I too entered the well of the House holding a placard calling for a discussion on the recent security breach.” He protested out of solidarity for his party colleagues "who have been unjustly suspended for demanding accountability from the government,” stated on X.
“Seems the government wants an Opposition-mukt Lok Sabha. In solidarity with my colleagues, I too joined the protest today and everybody present has been suspended for the rest of the session which means they want to pass their Bills without any discussion. I think it is a betrayal of Parliamentary democracy,” Tharoor added while addressing the media outside the House.
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah, NCP's Supriya Sule, Samajwadi Party's Dimple Yadav, and Congress' Manish Tewari.