Death of a sitting member of Parliament

E Ahamed, former Union minister of State(External Affairs)and Lok Sabha MP died in hospital after cardiac arrest but the budget went on as per schedule. He collapsed during President Pranab Mukherjee’s address on Tuesday and was immediately shifted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi. He was declared dead at 2.15 am on Wednesday. The RML Medical Superintendent Prof A K Gadpayle said, “The cause of death is complete heart block, cardiogenic shock and diabetes with hypertension.”

He was the sitting MP from Mallapuram in Kerala, belonging to Indian Union Muslim League(IUML). A senior leader who had represented India at the United Nations, he was respected by all parties. The normal reaction would have been to declare mourning and postpone the scheduled budget presentation on Wednesday. But the government decided to go ahead with the budget.

February 1^st was Basant Panchami, considered “very auspicious”. The Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley referred to it twice in his Budget speech- “There is no other day which is more appropriate for this than today.”

Disrespect to a dead leader

In a statement, the Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan criticized the insensitive way in which the government conducted the budget session inspite of a senior leader’s demise. He reminded that it was in the same Parliament building that Ahamed, a senior MP had collapsed on Tuesday. “Presenting budget in the same building within hours after his death was totally improper and unfortunate. The Centre has gone ahead with the budget presentation, hurting the sentiments of the members of the House. It was a grave mistake that the government had gone ahead with the budget presentation at a time when tributes should have been paid to such a senior leader,” he said.

Is the government right to continue presenting the Budget if a sitting Lok Sabha MP had died a day before? Now there are allegations that the family members of the 78 year old leader were not consulted before putting him on life support and were not allowed to meet him.

Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) raised the issue of the handling of E. Ahamed’s death in parliament today. “I hear of interference from highest authorities. If it is correct, action must be taken. How was life support system put without closest relatives’ permission? Leaders, relatives were not allowed to see him. I ask you to start an investigation.”