Year in review: How India's political landscape transformed in 2023

146 MPs suspended from Parliament

Opposition INDIA bloc parties protested at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on December 22 against the suspension of 146 MPs from both Houses of Parliament. The “Save Democracy” protest lashed out at the Narendra Modi government for “bulldozing” the Opposition MPs out of Parliament and getting crucial Bills passed.

The wave of suspensions followed protests over the December 13 Parliament security breach, with the Opposition sticking to its demand for a statement by Union Home Minister Amit Shah inside the House. The face-off only sharpened after TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee was seen mimicking Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar.

Mahua Moitra suspended from Lok Sabha

On December 8, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra, a first-term member of Parliament, was disqualified from Lok Sabha after a motion for her expulsion was passed by the House. The government moved the motion following the adoption of a report by the Ethics Committee recommending her expulsion for sharing her login credentials and password with an unauthorised person, its impact on national security, and finding that it amounted to unethical conduct and contempt of the House.

On the other hand, Moitra dismissed the committee's conclusions as a result of a pre-fixed match by a “kangaroo court.”

Moitra further alleged that she faced humiliating questions during the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee's hearing and accused the chairman of reading out a pre-written script containing "disgusting, invasive, private details" unrelated to the proceedings.

G20 Summit in New Delhi

September marked a historic moment for India as it hosted the G20 Summit in its vibrant capital, New Delhi. The 2023 G20 New Delhi summit was the eighteenth meeting of the G20 (Group of Twenty), held at the Bharat Mandapam International Exhibition-Convention Centre, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, on September 9–10, 2023. It was the first G20 summit held in India.

Under the theme “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam," meaning “The world is one family," the summit brought together leaders from the world’s 19 largest economies and the European Union to tackle pressing global challenges. Here are five key takeaways from the two-day summit:

1. The African Union has been inducted as the new permanent member of the G20, pushing forward a new world order and offering developing nations a greater say in global decision-making.

2. A comprehensive rail and shipping connectivity network was announced linking the US, India, Saudi Arabia, Gulf and Arab states, and the European Union.

3. The Delhi Declaration was adopted by China and Russia in agreement with it. It called on nations to uphold international law, including territorial integrity and sovereignty, international humanitarian law, and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability. It is being offered as an alternative to China's Belt and Road project, which has left a host of developing countries in deep debt, such as Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos, and Mongolia.

4. PM Modi announced the launch of the Global Biofuel Alliance to boost the use of cleaner fuels. It was affirmed that this alliance will accelerate global efforts to meet net-zero emission targets by facilitating trade in biofuels derived from various sources, including plant and animal waste.

5. The trust deficit that has risen in recent years has to be overcome by greater cooperation between member countries of G20.

India vs Bharat: What’s in a name?

A heated debate erupted in India after the Group of 20 (G20) invite for a dinner party referred to President Droupadi Murmu as “President of Bharat.” This triggered speculation about whether the central government was mulling dropping ‘India’ and only keeping ‘Bharat’.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was seen cheering the use of ‘Bharat’ on the invites, the Opposition INDIA bloc denounced the move. Amid the political row that started on September 5, Union Minister Anurag Thakur dismissed the talks of renaming the country 'Bharat' as “rumours."

The row further spiralled after BJP’s Sambit Patra shared a picture of a note on the Prime Minister’s visit to Indonesia for the 20th ASEAN-India Summit, and the 18th East Asia Summit showed Narendra Modi as the ‘Prime Minister of Bharat’.

The return of Rahul Gandhi to Lok Sabha

On August 7, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was reinstated as the Lok Sabha MP from Kerala's Wayanad constituency. The development came days after the Supreme Court stayed his conviction in the 'Modi' surname remark case.

Gandhi was disqualified from the Lok Sabha after he was convicted in a defamation case by a Surat court in March this year. The court convicted him in a defamation case over his 'Modi' surname remark and sentenced him to two years in prison.

BJP leader and former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi filed a criminal defamation case in 2019 against Gandhi's "How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname?" remark during an election rally in Karnataka's Kolar in April 2019.

Opposition parties form ‘INDIA’ alliance for 2024 election

In July, the leaders of 26 Opposition political parties from across India joined hands to form the INDIA coalition—the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance—to take on the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

The alliance includes the Indian National Congress (INC), All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – Sharad Pawar faction, Shiv Sena (UBT), Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Apna Dal (Kamerawadi), Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), All India Forward Bloc, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), Kongunadu Makkal Desia Katchi (KMDK), Manithaneya Makkal Katchi (MMK), Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Kerala Congress (M) and the Kerala Congress (Joseph).

State Assembly elections

In the May 10 Karnataka Assembly election, Congress became king in the state. The party registered a thumping victory in the election in the southern state, winning 136 out of the 224 seats. The BJP conceded defeat and only bagged 65 seats.

The BJP, on the other hand, swept the three Hindi heartland states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in a dominant electoral show ahead of the general election in 2024. The Congress, stunned by the BJP in two of those states, drew consolation from an impressive win in Telangana, denying K Chandrashekhar Rao a hat-trick.

In Mizoram, Lalduhoma's ZPM (Zoram People’s Movement) sailed to a simple majority, winning 27 out of the 40 assembly seats and unseating the ruling MNF (Mizo National Front).

Sikh separatist leader Amritpal Singh arrested

Amritpal Singh, the fugitive 'Waris Punjab De' chief, was arrested from Moga's Rhode village in Punjab on April 23. Following his arrest, the 29-year-old was flown to Assam on a special flight to be lodged at the Dibrugarh Central Jail.

Amritpal had been on the run since March 18, when the Punjab Police began a crackdown against his organisation, Waris Punjab De. The crackdown started days after he and his supporters stormed a police station in Amritsar on February 23, following the arrest of one of the preacher’s aides for alleged assault and attempted kidnapping.

AAP leaders arrested

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has lost three top leaders to arrests in less than two years. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Arvind Kejriwal-led party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on October 4 in its money laundering investigation in the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy case.

Singh is the third high-profile AAP leader to have been arrested by a central agency after former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and ex-Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain.

India bans BBC documentary on PM Modi

In January, India banned a BBC documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in deadly riots more than 20 years ago from being shown in the country, in a move critics decried as an assault on press freedom.

A senior adviser for the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said directions to block the documentary were issued using “emergency powers” available to the government under India’s information and technology rules.

“Videos sharing @BBCWorld hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage, disguised as ‘documentary’, on @YouTube and tweets sharing links to the BBC documentary have been blocked under India’s sovereign laws and rules,” senior adviser Kanchan Gupta wrote on X, adding both YouTube and Twitter have complied with the order.

The documentary questions Modi’s leadership as chief minister during riots in Gujarat in 2002, when about 1,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims. Human rights activists put the toll at about 2,500.

Honorary mentions

Delhi Ordinance Bill passed

The Rajya Sabha passed the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill in New Delhi on August 7, four days after the Lok Sabha cleared the Bill. According to the Centre, the Bill is for the “maintenance of democratic and administrative balance in the governance” of the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

The Bill was passed with 131 members voting in favour of it and 102 voting against it. Apart from the NDA constituents, the Bill got the support of the members from Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP).

Atiq Ahmed shot dead

Criminal-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Khalid Azim were shot dead by three assailants in Prayagraj on April 15, while being escorted by about a dozen police personnel for a routine medical checkup. The former Samajwadi Party (SP) MP was killed hours after the last rites of his son Asad Ahmed, who was gunned down in a police encounter in Jhansi two days ago.

Ahmed and his brother, a former MLA, had been taken into police custody on April 13 in connection with the February 24 murder of Umesh Pal, the key witness in the 2005 murder of Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Raju Pal.

Chandrababu Naidu arrested in corruption case

N Chandrababu Naidu, former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and Telugu Desam Party president, was arrested by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) early on September 9 in connection with corruption in the skill development scam case.?