London: The UK parliamentary debate called on Monday over safety of protesters and the right to report the protests freely turned out to be as one-sided as expected. The Indian High Commission condemned the debate as such. Seen another way, this meant that just about every MP who turned up was critical of India.
This was expected because only MPs with certain political inclinations would turn up for a debate such as this at all. Thirty-six MPs among the 650 in the UK parliament had already signed the petition calling for the debate. That half of them would turn up at the debate and speak as they signed surprised no one.
Only one MP spoke in support of the Indian government. Theresa Vil liers from the Conservative Party said nations around the world, France most recently, had seen farmers protest over government reforms. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she said, “was emphatic that commitment to a minimum support price has been retained, and the government had offered to postpone…