TMC MPs are not going to attend Parliament session from Monday: Sudip Bandyopadhyay

Trinamool Congress (TMC) Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay on Sunday said that their party MPs have mailed to the chairperson of Rajya Sabha that they are not going to attend Parliament session either in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha from tomorrow.

"We (TMC MPs) have mailed to the chairperson of Rajya Sabha that we are not going to attend Parliament session either in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha from tomorrow. Let the House be declared sine die," Bandyopadhyay told ANI.

"How can Parliament function when the country is in lockdown ?" he asked.

Earlier today, Trinamool Congress MPs wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu over the denial of the request to defer the working of Parliament as COVID-19 cases continue to surge across the country.

"We have attempted to flag this issue at every opportunity. The Parliament of India has thousands of people working here including MPs, officers, security personnel, media, and support staff. This congregation of people from across the country is a major health hazard," they wrote in the letter.

In view of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) assuming a critical dimension and lockdown in most of the states to tame the killer bug, the second part of Parliament's Budget Session is likely to end before April 3, sources said on Sunday.

A total of 128 samples of likely to be coronavirus cases were tested out of which 4 are positive while 107 samples were found negative and results of 17 samples are awaited, West Bengal's Health and Family Welfare Department said on Sunday.

Earlier today, the state government had ordered the suspension of all interstate bus services till March 31 as a preventive measure to check the spread of coronavirus.

The number of coronavirus positive patients in India rose to 341 on Sunday, as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).