No business in House on fifth day of winter session

Noisy protests by members on a range of issues disrupted proceedings of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha as the fifth day of the winter session of Parliament ended with hardly any business transacted on Wednesday.

Apart from some papers being laid on the table amid din, Finance Minister P Chidambaram presented the supplementary demands for grants (general) in the Lok Sabha before Speaker Meira Kumar adjourned the House for the day.

As soon as the Lok Sabha met for the day, MPs from the Seemandhra region, including YSR Congress party supremo Jaganmohan Reddy, started raising slogans against the move to carve out Telangana from Andhra Pradesh. They carried placards that read “Save Andhra Pradesh”. Jaganmohan also left his seat and rushed to aisle with other MPs from Seemandhra to protest against the move to create Telangana.

Bahujan Samaj Party MPs, led by Dara Singh Chouhan, too trooped into the well of the House, with placards to protest against deaths of children in the camps set up for the riot-hit people of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh.

The Samajwadi Party, which is in power in UP, sought to counter the BSP campaign and some of its MPs, led by Shailendra Kumar, came to the well to demand Scheduled Caste status to 17 backward castes in the northern State. 

Shiv Sena members also came to the well of the House demanding that no waiver should be given to the industrial sector for bad loans. Dravida Munnethra Kazhagam MPs demanded that India should take back the Kachchatheevu Island in Palk Straits from Sri Lanka and ensure security of the Tamil Nadu fishermen, who were allegedly being harassed by the navy and coast guards of the island nation.

Raghuvansh Prasad Singh of the Rashtriya Janata Dal demanded removal of the incumbent chairman of the Union Public Service Commission (D P Agrawal) and relaxation of certain norms for civil services examinations.

The Speaker adjourned the House till 12 noon but the ruckus continued even after it reassembled. After the papers were laid and Chidambaram presented the supplementary demands for grants (general), Kumar rose to say that she was “duty bound” to bring the three notices of the no-confidence motions against the government served by R Sambasiva Rao (Cong) and five party MPs from Seemandhra region of Andhra Prasdesh, M Venugopal Reddy of the Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress MP M Rajamohan Reddy before the Lok Sabha, but could not do so as the House was not in order.

“As the House is not in order, I am constrained not to bring the no-confidence motions notice before the House,” she said before adjourning the House till Thursday.

In Rajya Sabha, the SP and BSP trooped into the well of the House and demanded Centre’s approval for inclusion of the 17 Other Backward Castes of Uttar Pradesh in the list of Scheduled Castes. The House was adjourned but the noisy protests continued even after it reassembled. The House was then first adjourned till 2-00 pm and then for the day.