After Priyanka Chaturvedi, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor Quits Sansad TV Show

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• Dec 6, 2021 | Deleted

New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor quitted as the host of the talk show ‘To the Point’ aired on Sansad TV on Monday.

Tharoor took the decision to show solidarity with the 12 opposition MPs who were suspended from the Rajya Sabha in November.

In his resignation statement, Shashi Tharoor wrote, “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.”

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“However, the prolonged suspension of 12 MPs 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.” he added.

Notably, his resignation statement comes a day after Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi stepped down as an anchor of the Sansad TV show ‘Meri Kahaani.’ She is among the 12 suspended Rajya Sabha MPs.

In her letter to Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu, Chaturvedi wrote, “After my arbitrary suspension, that has disgraced established parliamentary norms and rules, to stifle my voice, my party’s voice inside the chamber, I am unwilling to continue taking space on Sansad TV when my primary oath to the Constitution is being denied to me.”

During the first day of the winter session of Parliament, 12 opposition MPs were suspended from the Rajya Sabha for the entire session of Parliament over their unruly conduct in the previous session in August.

Of 12 suspended MPs, six are from the Congress party, one each from the CPI and CPI (M) and two each from the Trinamool Congress and Shiv Sena.