New Delhi:  Congress MP Shashi Tharoor declared on Monday that he will not host the Sansad TV show in solidarity with the 12 Opposition MPs who were barred from the Rajya Sabha for the remaining winter session of the Parliament until the suspension of the legislators is revoked.

Tharoor has been hosting the talk show titled "To The Point" on Sansad TV. "I believed that accepting Sansad TV's invitation to host a show was in the best traditions of India's parliamentary democracy," the Thiruvananthapuram MP said, "reaffirming the principle that our political differences did not prevent us, as Members of Parliament, from fully participating in various parliamentary institutions that belong to us all."

Tharoor emphasised that he will stop presenting the chat show "unless the suspensions of MPs are lifted" and "a semblance of bipartisanship is restored to the conduct of Parliament and the functioning of Sansad TV."

However, the extended suspension of 12 Rajya Sabha members, who were expelled arbitrarily for activities committed during a previous session has thrown into doubt the entire assumption of a bipartisan spirit motivating the functioning of Parliament, he remarked.

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