During the Monsoon Session of Parliament yesterday, chaos broke out in the Lok Sabha as opposition MPs tore up copies of three key Bills and flung paper at Home Minister Amit Shah. This came after he made a motion to send the legislation to a Joint Committee. Condemning the uproar, Mandi MP Kangana Ranaut accused opposition members of even bringing stones into the House, calling the incident “shameful” and unbecoming of parliamentary conduct.

She claimed that the opposition leaders tried to remove Shah’s mic when he introduced the Bills, tore the bill, and “some people even brought stones and threw them at his face.” Trinamool MPs led by Kalyan Banerjee came close to Shah, followed by Ministers Kiren Rijiju and Ravneet Bittu to rush to his aid.

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Garnering several mixed reactions on social media, Ranaut’s claims questioned how bringing stones inside the Parliament was allowed. A user on the internet questioned, “Is there no provision to punish violent MPs…violence has no place in Parliament.” On the other hand, the internet questioned the authenticity of her statement, given the previous claims made by her.

The three bills in question

The three key bills were raised in the Lok Sabha on August 20, which led to significant chaos, included the Online Gaming Bill, the Constitution Amendment Bill, and the Union Territories Bill. Highly sensitive, each of these bills has multiple stakeholders and indirectly affects the larger population of India.

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An attempt to regulate and safeguard the provisions of online gaming, e-sports and social gaming, the Online Gaming Bill aims to but a ban on real-money gaming platforms. It comes due to the Government’s concern for increased spending in fantasy betting and addiction among the youth.

Second, the most controversial of them all, the Constitution Amendment Bill would provide for elected officials to be removed in case of their arrest or detention. This includes both the posts of Chief Ministers and the Prime Minister. Debating on Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, the Government of Union Territories Bill would remove the current provisions the UT has.

All these bills were met with great sloganeering, massive uproar and intense ruckus in the Parliament from the opposition members. K C Venugopal, Manish Tewari, Asaduddin Owaisi, and N K Premachandran opposed and said the Bills would be changing the basic structure of the constitution, which was the key judgement passed in the landmark Kesavananda Bharati Case. Venugopal referred to Shah’s arrest when he was the Minister of State for Home in Gujarat. However, it was met with a quick rebuttal as he had resigned on moral grounds.