It was not a dark and stormy night, but it was an unprecedented night in the history of the Indian Parliament.
On the middle night of Monday and Tuesday, the Lok Sabha worked until 12.24am (Tuesday), setting a new record for sitting past midnight for two consecutive nights after it also sat past midnight Sunday through Monday.
And while the Lok Sabha continued to ring even as the clock announced the start of Tuesday, just outside the parliament building, near the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, a group of eight members of parliament (MPs) suspended from the Rajya Sabha by President Venkaiah Naidu. for “serious disorderly conduct”, he organized the first nightly protest seen in the Indian Parliament.
It was a new addition to the many new normals of the monsoon session against the looming shadow of a growing number of Covid-19 cases in the country.
The night, as vivid and colorful as the day, presented the two faces of India’s MPs: their commitment to work beyond the hours stipulated in the House and their right to democratically protest.
At the Lok Sabha, Speaker Om Birla, 57, sat through the process until the House rose early Tuesday to meet again in the afternoon.
The Lok Sabha, scheduled to meet for four hours from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) bill of 2020 at 8.23 p.m. and at 11.38 p.m. passed the Bill of Epidemic Diseases (Amendment) 2020.
It didn’t stop there. At 12.22 a.m. M., The Lower House of Parliament passed the Central Council of Homeopathy Bill (Amendment) 2020 and the Central Council of Medicine Bill (Amendment) of India, 2020.
Parliament is no stranger to marathon proceedings. In the 1970s and 1980s, budget discussions often dragged on to the next day, but veteran MPs and also observers of parliamentary procedures claimed that this is perhaps the first time that bills have been passed after midnight.
The eight suspended MPs, Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen from Trinamool, Sanjay Singh from AAP, Congressional leaders Rajeev Satav, Syed Nasir Hussain and Ripun Borah, and KK Ragesh and Elamaram Kareem from CPIM, spent the night in Parliament, they slept under the open sky and ate whatever it was. sandwiches and packaging Thalis were made available to him.
Kareem, 67, is the oldest of the eight and Rajeev Satav, 46, is the youngest.
Finally, they canceled their protest late on Tuesday morning, after their parties decided to boycott the Rajya sabha as a reminder of the session.
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