The government on Monday used its numbers in the Rajya Sabha to suspend 12 Opposition MPs from five parties for the entire winter session for “misconduct” and “unruly” behaviour on the last day of the monsoon session when they were trying to stop the passage of the contentious General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill.

The suspension was done under Rule 256 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of the Rajya Sabha but the Opposition in a joint statement pointed out that the disciplinary action was a violation of that very provision.

Clause (2) of Rule 256 says that a member can be “suspended from the service of the Council for a period not exceeding the remainder of the Session”. The incident cited by the government happened in the previous session.

The suspension came shortly after the government rammed through the Farm Laws Repeal Bill without discussion. The motion for suspension was moved by parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi.

The notice accuses the 12 members of disregarding the authority of the Chair, “complete abuse of rules” and “unprecedented acts of misconduct, contemptuous, unruly and violent behaviour and intentional attacks on security personnel”. Amid Opposition protests, the motion was put to voice vote and adopted.

The 12 MPs are Phulo Devi Netam, Chhaya Verma, Ripun Bora, Rajmani Patel, Syed Nasir Hussain and Akhilesh Prasad Singh of the Congress, Priyanka Chaturvedi and Anil Desai of the Shiv Sena, Dola Sen and Shanta Chhetri of the Trinamul Congress, Elamaram Kareem of the CPM and Binoy Viswam of the CPI.

With the House adjourned immediately for the day, the Opposition went into a huddle to strategise and has decided to meet again on Tuesday morning to finalise their course of action. In a joint statement, they condemned “the unwarranted and undemocratic suspension” and called it an “authoritarian decision of the government”.

In a series of tweets, Chaturvedi said: “If speaking for farmers, against privatisation that goes against the people and sells family silver for sarkari PR calls for suspension, then I ask: how weak are you to not be able to answer on basis of parliamentary democracy? Will continue to speak for people inside & outside the parliament.”

Linking the suspension and the refusal to allow discussion on the farm laws repeal bill, Kareem said: “The BJP government is turning Indian Parliament into a hotbed of democratic destruction. The Opposition has been trying to oppose the anti-people policies of the central government and to respond to it in accordance with the House proceedings. What should MPs do when even that is not allowed?”

Viswam, in a separate statement, described the suspension as an effort to “crush dissent and prevent representatives of the people from raising issues that concern the very core of Indian citizenry”.

Earlier, during the inter-session period, the Opposition had refused to be part of an enquiry committee that Rajya Sabha chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu had wanted to set up to probe the August 11 ruckus that resulted in MPs jostling with security personnel called in to prevent protesting MPs from approaching the Well of the House.

Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge — who had been approached by Naidu to nominate someone from the Congress to the committee — had billed the plans to set up an enquiry committee into the incident as an effort to “intimidate MPs into silence” and refused to be part of it. Other Opposition parties concurred with the Congress’s position.