New Delhi, August 22: India’s lower house of parliament descended into chaos on Wednesday as the government introduced three bills that would allow the removal of elected leaders, including the prime minister and state chief ministers, if they are jailed for more than 30 days without bail on serious criminal charges.
The legislation — covering amendments to the Constitution, the governance of union territories and the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir — proposes that a detained prime minister could be removed by the president, while state governors would have the power to dismiss chief ministers who refuse to resign.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who tabled the bills, clashed with Congress lawmaker K.C. Venugopal, who referred to Shah’s arrest in 2010 when he was Gujarat’s home minister. Shah retorted that he had resigned at the time and accused the then-Congress government of fabricating charges against him. “We cannot be so shameless that we continue to occupy constitutional positions while facing serious charges,” he said.
The move triggered uproar from the opposition, with Trinamool Congress MPs tearing copies of the bills in front of Shah’s seat, prompting a scuffle on the floor. Opposition leaders, including Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, warned that the measures could be misused to target political opponents. “He tells the ED to put a case and a democratically elected person is wiped out within 30 days,” Gandhi said, referring to India’s Enforcement Directorate.
Other opposition lawmakers, including Asaduddin Owaisi of AIMIM and Congress’s Manish Tewari, called the bills unconstitutional and anti-federal, saying they would undermine parliamentary democracy and risk turning India into a “police state.”
Despite protests, the bills were referred by a voice vote to a 31-member joint parliamentary committee, which is expected to report back by the winter session in November.
