Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former finance minister P Chidambaram are among 14 MPs who sought leave of absence from the Parliament session on health grounds.
Of the 14 MPs, 11, including Oscar Fernandes, Navneeth Krishnan, Narendra Jadhav and Sushil Gupta, have sought leave for the entire monsoon session of Parliament citing “vulnerable age”.
This comes right after Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Meenakshi Lekhi, Anant Kumar Hegde, Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma and 21 other MPs of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha tested positive for coronavirus in the mandatory tests conducted before the monsoon session of Parliament which began on Monday, 14 September.
MPs Test COVID-Positive
As many as 12 MPs from the BJP – the most from any party in Lok Sabha – were found COVID-positive followed by the YSR Congress' two MPs and one each of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Shiv Sena and the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party.
Others who have been detected COVID-19 positive include Pratap Rao Jadav, Janardan Singh, Sukhbir Singh, Hanuman Beniwal, Sukanata Majumdar, Goddeti Madhavi, Bidyut Baran, Pradan Baruah, N Reddeppa, Selvam G, Pratap Rao Patil, Ram Shankar Katheria, Satya Pal Singh and Rodmal Nagar.
BJP's Belagavi MP and Union junior minister for Railways Suresh Angadi will also remain absent from the monsoon session on accounting of testing COVID-positive, although he said he continues to remain “fine” and “asymptomatic”.
Union AYUSH Minister Shripad Naik was on Saturday, 12 September discharged from a Panaji hospital after being admitted for the same deadly virus for a month. In fact, his situation turned serious following which a central team from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences was monitoring his health.
However, it's very unlikely that the 67-year-old minister will attend the Parliament session.
Meanwhile, at least seven Trinamool Congress MPs including its chief whip in the Rajya Sabha Shukhendu Sekhar Roy have decided to give the monsoon session a miss.
“I wrote to the House chairman informing that I will not be attending this session primarily due to two reasons: my age and the order of the home secretary during unlock, asking people above 65 years of age to stay indoors, which I have enclosed. As lawmakers, we cannot be lawbreakers,” Roy told IANS.
(This story has been republished in arrangement with IANS)
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