Two more Opposition MPs were suspended from the remainder of the Winter Session of Parliament on Wednesday for disrupting the proceedings as they sought a discussion on the December 13 security breach in the Lok Sabha chamber, ANI reported.

This came a day after 49 Opposition MPs were suspended for the same reason. This takes the total number of MPs who have been suspended from both the Houses since December 14 to 143 – 97 in the Lok Sabha and 46 in the Rajya Sabha.

On Wednesday, Lok Sabha MPs Thomas Chazhikadan and AM Ariff were suspended for “displaying placards and entering the Well of the House”, ANI reported.

Chazhikadan belongs to Kerala Congress (Mani) and Ariff to the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

The Opposition legislators have been demanding a discussion on the security breach of Parliament on December 13 when two men had jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery and opened gas canisters. Outside Parliament, a man and a woman had opened smoke canisters.

Earlier in the day, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party wanted to establish a “single party rule” in the country and Opposition MPs were being suspended for that reason.

“They [Modi and the BJP] talk of ‘Ek Akela’ which is akin to demolishing democracy,” Kharge said in a social media post. “This is precisely what they have done by suspending Opposition MPs.”

While more than 140 Opposition legislators have been suspended because they wanted a statement from the Union home minister on the security breach in Parliament, the BJP MP who facilitated the entry of the intruders on December 13 remains scot-free and has not been questioned, Kharge said.

On Tuesday, after suspension of the Opposition MPs from the Lok Sabha, Union Home Minister Amit Shah came to the Lower House and moved a motion to discuss three crucial bills replacing the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure Act and the Indian Evidence Act.

Also read: ‘Rules for suspension are meant for individual MPs, not by the bulk’: Lok Sabha ex-secretary general