Shiv Sena MP in the Rajya Sabha, Priyanka Chaturvedi resigned from her position as anchor for the show “Meri Kahani” on the parliament’s broadcast platform “Sansad TV” on Sunday stating that she was doing so with “deep anguish.”
In a letter written to vice president of India and Rajya Sabha chairperson, M Venkaiah Naidu, she said “it is with deep anguish that I step down as an anchor of Sansad TV’s show ‘Meri Kahani’. I am unwilling to occupy space on Sansad TV for a show but being denied space on it for discharging parliamentary duties to arbitrary suspension of us 12 MPs.” Ms Chaturvedi along with 11 other MPs belonging to various Opposition parties were suspended at the beginning of the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament, for scenes of ruckus that took place in the last, Monsoon Session.
Opposition MPs have been protesting the move, with these 12 MPs continuing a sit-in dharna in Parliament premises. Mr Naidu has been appealed to but he remains adamant that he will not revoke the suspension without an apology. The MPs and their parties have refused to apologise and a stalemate continued through the first week of the Winter Session. Sansad TV is an amalgamated broadcast platform for both Houses — the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha — set up by merging the separate television that had been broadcasting proceedings live. Ms Chaturvedi and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor were both roped in as anchors for their won interview based shows with parliamentarians in the new set up.
