U'khand row gives RS session a stormy start

The Rajya Sabha on Monday began on a stormy note with the Congress seeking to corner the government on the imposition of the President’s Rule in Uttarakhand.

Trouble started soon after the oath taking of new members and obituary references with Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad raising the issue and Congress members rushing to the Well of the House. Azad said the government was “deliberately provoking” the opposition to cause disruption so that the House does not run. “The government is creating an environment so that the House does not function,” Azad said, adding that efforts were being made by the ruling party in this regard.

When Congress MPs insisted on a discussion on the issue, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said a discussion was scheduled on the proclamation of the President’s Rule. “You cannot, by an alternative motion, anticipate a discussion which is to take place when the proclamation comes up. You cannot discuss it at the pre-proclamation stage,” he said.

No business was conducted during the day as Congress MPs continued to protest. Azad said he had never seen that a government “does things during the session or just days before the session so that Parliament does not function”.

Seeking to preempt any attack on the Congress on the imposition of the President’s Rule during its reign, he said Article 356 was invoked in the past too, but never in such a “crude” way.

He said he wanted to congratulate the judges of the Uttarakhand High Court for “having the guts to fight the Government of India”.