16 MPs from Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala among 24 suspended: How it is hurting southern states

In all, of the 24 MPs suspended from Parliament, 16 are from the south Indian states of Kerala, Telangana and Tamil Nadu.

“As we are under suspension, we won’t be allowed to vote in the Vice President election. We can’t participate in debates, can’t raise questions, can’t be the voice of our constituents, can’t even be part of parliamentary committees,” Manickam Tagore, Congress’ MP in the Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar and AICC Telangana in-charge who was suspended on Monday, told South First.

Tagore spoke to South First from a hall where all Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, were being detained by the Delhi police for protesting against the government.

What this means for southern representation in Parliament

MPs from all the five southern states — Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana — put together make up less than 25 percent of both houses of Parliament.

In the Rajya Sabha, which has a total strength is 237, there are 57 MPs from southern states across party lines, including BJP. The number constitutes 24.05 percent of total strength.

Among the 57 are seven BJP MPs who aren’t naturally raising questions on GST levy on essential commodities, inflation, price rise against their own government. Even if one were to include BJP allies like AIADMK in the "non-BJP" MP bracket, there are virtually only 50 MPs from southern states in Rajya Sabha who could raise these burning issues.

By suspending 12 among those 50, the Rajya Sabha Chairman has effectively brought down representation of non-BJP MPs from southern states to 16 per cent with 38 MPs. This number still includes MPs from parties that the ruling BJP has an alliance or tacit understanding with.

With 129 MPs in the Lok Sabha out of the total house strength of 543, the five southern states have a representation of 23.75 percent.

Excluding BJP MPs of the Lok Sabha, representation from the south stands at 100. The number still includes allies of the BJP like the AIADMK. This effectively brings down the representation of Southern to 18.4 per cent of MPs among non-BJP parties. Four opposition MPs were suspended on Monday, July 25, for the rest of the monsoon session, further reducing representation to just 17.6 percent of the Lower House.

Issues southern MPs won’t be able to raise

On Monday, the Congress’ Manickam Tagore, Ramya Haridas, Jothimani and TN Prathapan were suspended from the Lok Sabha.

Kerala MP Ramya Haridas had questions listed on Monday and Tuesday on living conditions of construction workers, exploitation of labourers across the country, about the framework to monitor social media and harassment of women online, and one on India’s preparedness on medical tourism.

TN Prathapan, also a Kerala MP, had questions on the political representation of India's tribal population.

These are just some of the questions listed for oral answers.

“All our questions are removed from the lists. We can’t participate in Question Hour or Zero Hour, which are crucial to raise issues of public concern. I wanted to raise questions on some seven lakh crore rupees pending in payments to the MSME sector from central and state government. I was supposed to raise questions on Madurai airport, railway lines to my constituency and state,” Tagore told South First.

Of the 19 MPs suspended for a week from the Rajya Sabha, M Hamamed Abdulla, B Lingaiah Yadav, AA Rahim, Ravihandra Vaddiraju, S Kalyanasundaram, R Girranjan, NR Elango, V Sivadasan, M Shanmugam, Damodar Rao Divakonda, Sandosh Kumar and Dr Kanimozhi are from the southern states.

DMK’s Kanimozhi deemed the move “an act that will worsen people’s trust in democracy".

With less than 25 percent representation in the two houses of Parliament already, the suspensions mean the southern states are losing out on their voice every single day an MP is forced to stay away from proceedings.