New Delhi: Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju defended the deployment of CISF personnel in the well of Rajya Sabha, citing examples where MPs physically climbed the Treasury Bench and assured the Congress that no MP would be stopped from speaking. Earlier, Congress chief Mallikrajun Kharge on Friday expressed concern over the deployment of CISF personnel. Condemning the move, Kharge said, “We hope that in future, CISF workers will not come to the well of the House, when members are raising important issues of public concern.”
Responding to Kharge’s concern, Rizzu said, “This was a demand to increase the security of the members of Parliament, so CISF was deployed. Inside the House, members have sometimes taken a stand near the Treasury Table and the well. Security has been deployed to prevent them from doing so. No MP will be prevented from speaking. ,He clarified that the CISF personnel would remain inactive until the MPs were engaged in disruptive behavior, ANI said.The Union Minister said, “Marshal and security inside the House will not take any action until the MPs did anything malicious. Some MPs became aggressive, and therefore arrangements were made to stop them.”On Friday, Rajya Sabha opposition leader Mallikrajun Kharge sent a letter to Vice President Harivansh, in which rejection of deployment of CISF personnel was expressed during the opposition protest.Kharge wrote, “We are amazed and surprised that the way CISF personnel are designed to run in the well of the House, when members are using their democratic rights of protest”Congress MP Pramod Tiwari criticized the government, given that women MPs were stopped by male CISF personnel.“Today is a tragic and dark day in Indian democracy. Commandos have been deployed. Some are saying that it is CISF, saying something else. They forcefully stopped the members from going to the employees. Our female members were stopped. The men stopped them,” Tiwari told reporters.
