Tharoor steps down as Sansad TV show host to support suspended MPs

New Delhi : Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday announced that he will not host the talk show on Sansad TV to show solidarity with the 12 Opposition MPs, who were suspended from Rajya Sabha for the remaining winter session of the Parliament until the suspension of the legislators is revoked.

Taking to Twitter, Tharoor shared his statement on the resignation from the talk show ‘To The Point’.

“I believed that my accepting Sansad TV’s invitation to host a show was in the best traditions of India’s parliamentary democracy, reaffirming the principle that our political differences did not prevent us, as Members of Parliament, from participating fully in various parliamentary institutions which belong to us all,” the statement read.

Terming the suspension of Opposition MPs as “arbitrary”, Tharoor added, “However, the prolonged suspension of 12 MP’s from the Rajya Sabha, expelled in an arbitrary manner for actions committed during a previous session, has called into question the very assumption of a bipartisan spirit animating the work of Parliament.

As an MP who has gone every morning to greet the protestors and express my solidarity with them, I am concerned that my continued involvement in hosting a show on Sansad TV would be seen as making me complicit in the undemocratic manner in which Parliamentary institutions are being run.”

The Congress MP further said that he has decided to suspend hosting the talk show “until such time as the suspensions of MPs are revoked” and a “semblance of bipartisanship restored to the conduct of Parliament and the functioning of Sansad TV.”

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi had on Sunday stepped down as anchor for a show on Sansad TV after being suspended from the Rajya Sabha for the entire winter session of the Parliament.

As many as 12 MPs from the opposition parties were suspended from Parliament’s winter session for allegedly creating ruckus on the last day of the monsoon session.

The suspended MPs include six from Congress, two each from TMC and Shiv Sena and one each from CPM and CPI.