Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said on Wednesday that moving his designated seat in the Rajya Sabha from the third row to the fifth row was meant to “intentionally humiliate” his party and him.
In a letter to Rajya Sabha Chairperson, Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, Mr. Raut objected to the November 15 decision of shifting his seat against the backdrop of the pre-poll alliance of the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra falling apart.
‘Message sent’
“A message seems to have been sent by changing the seating position in the chamber that it is correlated with the tussle in government formation in Maharashtra,” he wrote.
Mr. Raut said there had been “no formal announcement” of the Shiv Sena’s removal from the National Democratic Alliance, and that the decision to re-assign his seat was “unwarranted”. He added that he had been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 2004 and was the leader of the Shiv Sena parliamentary party. He said he had been allotted a seat in the third row when the NDA was in Opposition. He asked the Chairperson to allot his party’s seats in the first, second or third row.
According to sources in the Rajya Sabha Secretariat, the decision to move Shiv Sena members’ seats was taken based on the recommendation of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.
Published - November 20, 2019 10:21 pm IST
