A STUNNING MOMENT IN THE RAJYA SABHA proceedings on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) was symptomatic of the larger political and governance context in which Union Home Minister Amit Shah and his associates in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government were pushing through this controversial piece of legislation. Amit Shah was arguing that the CAB posed no threat to the Assamese people and that the government would protect their rights. Members of the opposition, raising their voices in unison, vociferously contested the claim, which led to an animated and heated situation.
Both Houses of Parliament have witnessed many such occasions in the past, and people across the country and the world have had the opportunity to witness them through the live telecast of the proceedings. But on December 11, this moment of heightened tensions was followed by something strange and unprecedented: the stoppage of the live telecast of the proceedings. Just before this extraordinary development, Rajya Sabha Chairperson M. Venkaiah Naidu was heard telling opposition members not to interrupt the Minister and even warning them that they would be “named”, a procedure that prevents an MP from participating in the proceedings of the House for the rest of the day. As he said that, he also ordered that nothing the opposition members were saying would go on record. Immediately after this, Rajya Sabha TV stopped its live broadcast. Although the House-run channel gave no official explanation for this stoppage, informal indications from within the organisation were that this unparalleled situation arose because the Chair had pressed the red light button in his controls, giving the signal to stop the telecast. It was resumed only after the opposition voices had been silenced and Amit Shah had the floor entirely to himself.
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