New Delhi, Jan. 7 (IANS): The Lok Sabha was on Monday adjourned for the day after witnessing three brief pre-lunch and one post-lunch session adjournments due to protests by the Samajwadi Party and Congress members over a CBI probe against former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on alleged illegal mining, and the Rafale fighter jets issue.
Amid the furore, two bills — “Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2018” and “The personal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018” — were passed and Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended four members of the AIADMK and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for disrupting House proceedings.
Three AIADMK MPs P. Venugopal, K.N. Ramchandran, K. Gopal and TDP MP N. Shivaprasad were suspended for two days under Rule 374A.
Soon after the House reassembled at 2 p.m after lunch following three earlier adjournments, Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav, along with other party members, came near Speaker’s podium raising slogans against the Centre as “alliance with CBI needs to be broken, CBI is the parrot of BJP; this government is against farmers and students; the government is full of corruption”.
The Congress members also joined the protest and came near Speaker’s podium demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the procurement of 36 ready-to-fly Rafale fighter jets from France.
Amid the ruckus, Union Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar introduced “Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2018” which was passed by Mahajan.
As the din continued, she adjourned the House for half-an-hour.
After the House reassembled, Union Minister P.P. Choudhary introduced “The personal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018” to amend the Divorce Act, 1869; Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939; Special Marriage Act, 1954; the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955; and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 amid the ruckus by the opposition.
The Bill was opposed by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, while Biju Janata Dal (BJD)’s Bhartruhari Mahtab, Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s Kalyan Banerjee and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)’s Vinod Kumar supported it with some suggestions like rehabilitation of victims facing leprosy problem which lead to divorce.
As the pandemonium continued and the Samajwadi Party MPs started tearing news papers and throwing it in the air near the the Speaker’s chair, it forced Mahajan to adjourned the House for the day.
Earlier, the House saw three pre-lunch adjournments during which Mahajan suspended four TDP and AIADMK members for two consecutive sittings for causing “grave disorder” in the House.
When the House reassembled at noon after its first adjournment, the agitating members again trooped near the Speaker’s podium raising slogans in support of their demands like special status for Andhra Pradesh and against the proposed dam on the Cauvery river in Karnataka.
They have been protesting on these issues ever since the session started.
Mahajan issued a warning and suspended the four members of the two parties. Last week, the Speaker had suspended 45 Lok Sabha members belonging to AIADMK and the TDP.
She asked the suspended members to withdraw themselves from the House but they declined to. Later, she adjourned the House till 12.30 p.m.
When the House again reassembled, the Congress members started protesting demanding a JPC probe into the Rafale deal.
Amid the din, some of the members raised their issues in the Zero Hour.
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge raised the issue related to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s remarks on giving Rs 1-lakh crore government contracts to PSU HAL while Samajwadi Party’s Dharmendra Yadav attacked the government over a CBI probe against its chief.
As noisy scenes continued, the Speaker adjourned the House till 2 p.m.
The Lok Sabha was earlier adjourned till noon after witnessing unrelenting protests by the Congress, TDP and the AIADMK.
Soon after the House assembled for the day, the Congress members trooped near the Speaker’s podium and started sloganeering demanding the JPC probe
The Speaker tried to conduct the Question Hour but the protests continued, forcing her to adjourn the House till noon.
