Friday, 25 April 2025
Friday, 25 April 2025
Proceedings in both houses of the parliament on Thursday was adjourned as Opposition members protested in the House wearing T-shirts with slogans on the issue of delimitation of parliamentary and assembly constituencies.
The Speaker Om Birla directed those members, who came wearing T-shirts with slogans written on them, to go out of the House and come back with proper dress maintaining dignity.
"Some members are not maintaining the dignity and sanctity of the House," Birla said, stressing that wearing T-shirts is a breach of parliamentary decorum. "If you come wearing a T-shirt, with slogans written on them, the House won't function. If you remove the T-shirt and come, then the House will function," Birla told the MPs.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) members wore white T-shirts with slogans '#fairdelimitation Tamil Nadu will fight, Tamil Nadu will win' written on them.
Opposition has used clothing as a means of protest in parliament before as well, creating uproar in the House. In December, 2024, leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi arrived at Parliament with t-shirts printed with anti-Adani slogans on the back.
The t-shirts were a sign of protest against industrialist Gautam Adani, insinuating that he had close ties with PM Modi.
Earlier in the day, chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar adjourned the proceedings for an hour till 12 noon and called a meeting of floor leaders of various parties.
While Dhankhar did not cite any reason for the adjournment, the issue of DMK members wearing T-shirts with slogans written on them has been objected to by the chairman.
Birla first adjourned the House till 12 noon over the issue. When the House reconvened at 12 noon, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) member Krishna Prasad Tenneti, who was in the chair, adjourned the proceedings till 2 pm.
DMK members have been trying to raise the issue of delimitation in the Lok Sabha, but the Speaker had rejected their pleas contending that the issue is nowhere on the government radar as the census of population was yet to be conducted.
A delimitation storm has been brewing in the south as Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin opposed the population-based exercise over fears that southern states would lose out on the Lok Sabha seats. Stalin invited the chief ministers of seven states on March 22 to attend a meeting in Chennai; the meeting is expected to focus on how states can resist population-based delimitation.
Expected to come into effect in 2026, the delimitation process will redraw parliamentary constituencies based on population.
After M.K. Stalin claimed the denial of rights to southern states, home minister Amit Shah stated in the Lok Sabha on February 27, that under the Modi-led government, not a single seat from any southern state would be reduced after delimitation on a pro-rata basis.
