NEW DELHI – When Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced three controversial bills on Wednesday, the Indian Parliament fell into disarray. The proposed law, which would stop elected people from holding office after being arrested for serious crimes, made the Opposition, especially the Trinamool Congress (TMC), very angry. They said the government was targeting them.
At 2 p.m., Shah tried to bring up the 130th constitution amendment bill and two other bills that were related to it. Opposition MPs hurried to the Well of the House. Things immediately got out of hand, and there was a fight. K.C. Venugopal, a senior Congress lawmaker, ripped up a copy of the bill, while Kalyan Banerjee of the TMC tried to use Shah’s microphone to say why he was against it. Other TMC MPs hurled papers in front of the Minister of Home Affairs.
The noise made Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju and Minister of State Ravneet Singh Bittu come to Shah’s rescue. Bittu subsequently told the Hindustan Times that he was worried the demonstrators might hurt the Home Minister and called the scene a “shameful act.” The TMC, on the other hand, said that some of its female MPs, such as Mitali Bag and Satabdi Roy, were “assaulted” and “pushed and heckled” by the ministers. The BJP has since refuted this claim.
After a short break, the House met again at 3 p.m., and Shah sat in the fourth row. TMC’s Mahua Moitra called this “cowardly” on social media. With protests starting up again, 15 marshals came into the House to form a security ring around the treasury benches. After the Opposition complained about their presence, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla sent them back.
Opposition leaders were eager to speak out against the proposed law. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition, said that the law was an attempt to “wipe out” elected politicians and compared it to “medieval times” when a king could get rid of whomever he wanted. Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, said the law was a “death knell for democracy and federalism in India” and a move toward a “super-Emergency.”
Even though there were demonstrations, Shah was able to pass the measures. This isn’t the first time a minister has had to sit in the middle of the room to avoid a fight over a controversial measure. When the Women’s Reservation Bill was originally brought up in the Rajya Sabha in 2010, something similar happened.