Nothing extraordinary in Rajya Sabha proceedings: Somnath

Stating that the government as well as the opposition were interested in scoring political points, former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee said Friday that there was nothing extraordinary in the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha Thursday night.

"It is nothing extraordinary. I am not saying that such kinds of things happen regularly but such kind of things do happen. It is nothing historic... unnecessarily lot of hue and cry is being made over the issue," Chatterjee said amid cries that democracy had been subverted after Thursday night’s proceedings in the Rajya Sabha when the vote on the Lokpal bill fizzled out amid chaos and the house was adjourned abruptly.

"I want to ask (those) who are today shedding tears by crying that it is a bad day for democracy and parliament... where were those tears when on various occasions they have not allowed the house to run for days. Everybody was interested in scoring political points only," said Chatterjee.

The future of the anti-corruption legislation, passed by the Lok Sabha, is now uncertain. In unprecedented scenes, disorder prevailed in the upper house towards the end of the day-long animated and stormy debate on the bill meant to combat corruption. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged that the government had lost the moral right to govern.
Amid slogan shouting, BJP leader Arun Jaitley accused the government of "subverting parliament".