New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address in Parliament, slated for 5 p.m. on Wednesday, is understood to have been postponed, as the Lok Sabha was adjourned till Thursday morning, over continued uproar and vociferous sloganeering from the Opposition members.
As the Lok Sabha reconvened at 5 p.m. on Wednesday to discuss the Motion of Thanks to President’s address, the House plunged into chaos with Opposition members erupting in protest, apparently enraged over denial of permission to Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to rake up excerpts from an unpublished book, containing the memoirs of former Army Chief General M.M. Naravane.
Sandhya Ray, officiating as the House Chairman, made an appeal to the lawmakers to stay seated and not disrupt the proceedings but her appeals went unheeded.
Members from Oppositions benches assembled in the well of the House and kept flashing paper pamphlets.
Following this, the Chair announced adjournment of the House till 11 a.m. on Thursday.
When the Lower House resumed at 5 p.m., P.P. Chaudhary, BJP MP from Rajasthan’s Pali, spoke on the Motion of Thanks to President’s address and thanked Speaker Om Birla for allowing him to be part of the discourse.
He also made pointed reference to Rahul Gandhi and Congress’ ‘deliberate’ attempts to derail the House proceedings and took exception to hurling of torn papers at the Dalit leader, then presiding over the Lower House.
He alleged that tearing apart papers and hurling at the Chair was part of a planned move, and it was done with the blessings of the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi.
Notably, the Lower House has remained plagued by repeated disruptions for the last two days, with the Union government and Opposition engaging in a fierce stand-off over raking up of India-China border skirmishes during August 2020.
Rahul Gandhi, leading the Congress charge, raised the issue of Chinese aggression during Galwan stand-off while citing ‘uncomfortable facts’ from the memoirs of former Army Chief Naravane, where he is understood to have written about ‘political indecision’ about response mechanism to the then Chinese misadventures.
This drew strong counter from Union Ministers and also rejection from Speaker Birla, who rebuffed Rahul Gandhi’s repeated reference to Galwan, on grounds of violation of Parliamentary norms.
On Tuesday, when Telugu Desam Party leader Krishna Prasad Tenneti was on the Chair and refused Rahul Gandhi to grant permission on the same, citing Rule 349, which bars Lok Sabha members from reading from any book, newspaper or letter except in connection with the business of the House, the Opposition members erupted in protest, torn down the papers and hurled it at him.
Their unparliamentary conduct also invited disciplinary action from the Speaker and resulted in suspension of eight Opposition MPs from the remainder of the Parliament session.
(IANS)
