The Black Day in the Indian Democracy

Isha Sahni

The Telangana Bill is one of the most talked about issue in India. A number of protests have been organized ever since the talks of creating a state of Telangana started. While the congress seems unprecedented, a number of protests were expected to derail the bill and postpone or drop the Telangana Bill.

But Lok Sabha on Thursday, 13^th February, 2013 blurred the difference between the Parliament and street as broken glass, uprooted microphones and more shockingly pepper spray and loud brawls turned it into a battlefield between supporters and non-supporters of the state of Telangana.

Being referred to as the Black Day in Indian democracy, rightly so, the use of pepper spray in the Lok Sabha resulted in hospitalization of three MPs following a situation of brawl over introduction of theTelengana Bill which lead to the suspension of 16 Andhra Pradesh MPs.

This act of vandalism led to hospitalisation of three MPs–Vinay Kumar Pande, PonnamPrabhakar and BalramNai– as they suffered from suffocation, irritation in their eyes and heavy coughing. They were taken to nearby Government Ram ManoharLohia Hospital for treatment. They were later discharged.

Many other MPs were seen coming out with teary eyes and suffocated. The ambulances were immediately pressed into service.

LagadapatiRajagopalsprayed the canister of pungent pepper at the Members of Parliament and even broke a glass to vent his anger out when the Home Minister of India, Sushil Kumar Shinde, tried to table the bill for the creation of the state of Telangana.

“This is an attack on our democracy and it is nothing short of sedition,” said Yadav, who was in the Lok Sabha when Rajagopal did the unthinkable

Amid the commotion, the UPA government somehow managed to introduce a bill that would create the way to carve out a Telangana state out of Andhra Pradesh — the issue over which Rajagopal was protesting. But the BJP and some others contested this claim.

Though, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has promised a ‘strict action’ against the MPs, it can be well concluded that such rucks in the Parliament of India is a blot to the largest democracy in the world.