Tharoor shows solidarity with suspended MPs, suspends anchoring on Sansad TV

Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor of the Congress, has announced that he has suspended hosting his talk show To the Point on Sansad TV, until the suspension of the 12 Rajya Sabha Members of Parliament (MP) is revoked and a semblance of bipartisanship restored to the conduct of Parliament and the functioning of Sansad TV.

Tharoor said in a statement that after the revamp of the parliament’s two television channels in August this year, he had been proudly hosting the show on the channel and the show permitted him to engage in meaningful conversations with significant figures of our non-political public life, ranging from sitar maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan Sahib to noted cineaste Adoor Gopalakrishnan and VSSC Director Dr S. Somanath.

The statement said, “I believed that my accepting Sansad TV's invitation to host a show was in the best traditions of India's parliamentary democracy, reaffirming the principle that our political differences did not prevent us, as Members of Parliament, from participating fully in various parliamentary institutions which belong to us all.”

According to Tharoor, who is also a renowned writer, the prolonged suspension of 12 MPs from the Rajya Sabha, “expelled in an arbitrary manner for actions committed during a previous session, has called into question the very assumption of a bipartisan spirit animating the work of Parliament.

He said that every morning he has been going to greet the suspended MPs, who are protesting against the suspension, but he feels concerned that his continued involvement in hosting a show on Sansad TV, would be seen as making him complicit in the undemocratic manner in which Parliamentary institutions are being run.

“Sadly, Sansad TV itself has been accused of being part of the problem, as adverse comments have been made by many on its habit of having cameras focus on the members of the Treasury benches while ignoring the Opposition. A parliamentary TV channel must, by definition, reflect the diversity of Parliament and not merely whitewash the reality of Parliament's current functioning,” the statement said.