Speaker, Parliament Secretariat mum on opposition MPs using unparliamentary language: Bimal

By Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera

Colombo, April 9 (Daily Mirror) - Leader of the House Bimal Rathnayake today made a serious accusation against the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker and the Parliament Secretariat for not taking action against Opposition MPs who use unparliamentary language in the House, specially targeting female MPs of the ruling party.

He told Parliament that female MPs of the ruling party handed over a letter to the Speaker, calling for action against some Opposition MPs who use unparliamentary language in the House and make indecent remarks on female MPs.

Rathnayake said no action has been taken so far regarding the request by the female MPs and pointed out that the Speaker must take some action against the incident.

He said the Parliament Secretariat is also mum when such language is used in the House, targeting certain MPs.

Deputy Speaker Rizvie Salih said all such unparliamentary remarks will be expunged from the Hansard and said that the matter raised by the Leader of the House will be brought to the attention of the Speaker.

Opposition MP Harsha De Silva said both ruling party and opposition MPs must make sure that no unparliamentary languages are used in the House and that everyone refrains from making personal attacks. 

"We can have arguments on policies but not personal attacks," he said.