Shanta Kumar urges Speaker to act against protesting members

Lashing out at the opposition over disruption of Lok Sabha proceedings, senior BJP leader Shanta Kumar today urged the Speaker to take disciplinary measures, including stopping salary and allowances, and even expulsion of members who do not heed her directions.
The Lok Sabha member from Himachal Pradesh wrote to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on a day party veteran L K Advani expressed his anguish in the House over its non-functioning.
Accusing some political parties of "crossing all limits", the former Himachal Chief Minister said the Lok Sabha is witnessing sloganeering seen in streets and there is a need to take solid and effective steps to restore discipline in the House.

"If a member comes into the Well and shouts slogans despite the Speaker's instructions against it, then his salary and allowances should be stopped immediately from that day. Any member who does not abide by discipline despite the Speaker's warning should be expelled for the rest of the session," he wrote to the Speaker.
Due to the continued stalling of Parliament, members have become a subject of people's ridicule, he said, adding that school and college students sitting in visitors' gallery smile at them while witnessing the disruption.
"After 70 years of independence, the country's politics should have been more serious, decent, disciplined and mature. Instead, values in public life continue to fall. Consequently, the term politician is not a symbol of respect," he said.

An estimated Rs 6 crore is spent daily on running Parliament and the public money cannot be wasted, Kumar said.