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Vociferous protests by Opposition members led by the Congress continued in the Lok Sabha on Monday as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan warned several of them of action if they did not stop displaying placards, forcing the adjournment of the house for almost two hours.
The noisy scenes began soon after the house assembled and expressed grief at the loss of lives and property in different parts of the country due to cyclone and floods.
When the Question Hour was taken up, over 30 members of the Congress trooped in to the well, raising slogans and holding placards demanding resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and the chief ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh over the Lalit Modi and Vyapam issues.
Members from Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal-United too were in the Well with placards demanding that caste census data be made public, while some Telangana Rashtra Samithi members, also holding placards in the aisles, sought a separate high court for Telangana.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, standing at his seat, was seen thumping the desk as his party members continued sloganeering in the well.
As repeated pleas from the Speaker to the agitating members to put down their placards went unheeded, she named several of them, including Gaurav Gogoi, Sushmita Dev, Deepender Hooda, K C Venugopal and Rajiv Satav, and later warned them of action.
Amid noisy protests, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the government wanted the Question Hour to continue, after which the Speaker called out names of those whose questions had been listed for the day.
The Question Hour proceeded with some ministers replying to certain questions, but most of could not be heard in the din.
Opposition members, especially from the Congress, have been protesting against the government over Lalit Modi controversy and Vyapam scam since the Monsoon Session began last month.
When some Congress members displayed their placards in front of Union Minister Mahesh Sharma when he was replying to a question, there were sharp protests from the Bharatiya Janata Party benches with Mahajan also asking the opposition members not to disturb the minister.
A peeved Sharma, who is the minister of state for tourism and culture, said he was not able to see the face of the member who was asking the question. He requested the speaker to ensure that a minister should be allowed to hear the question first.
Mahajan also repeatedly asked the protesting members to put down the placards and even took their names.
Earlier, the speaker rejected notices for adjournment motions on different subjects, including those by Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge.
With the speaker rejecting his adjournment motion also, Kharge said despite the subjects being important, she was rejecting such notices every day.
When the house assembled, members expressed anguish over death and destruction caused by the floods and cyclone in different parts of the country and stood in silence for a brief while.
Image: Members of the Opposition hold up placards and protest inside Lok Sabha. Photograph: PTI
'Sushma Swaraj is one of our best performing ministers'
The all party meeting on Monday failed to break the nearly fortnight-long deadlock in Parliament with the Congress unrelenting on its demand for resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and BJP CMs Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and the government firmly rejecting it. However, a number of regional parties including the Trinamool Congress and Biju Janta Dal voiced anguish over continued disruption of the Houses and asked the two national parties to resolve the matter to ensure that other issues are discussed in Parliament. Janata Dal-United and Left parties, however, backed the Congress in the meeting.
"Outcome of the meeting is nil, we stand by our demand. The government wants to be the King and they expect the Opposition parties to behave like the subjects. Such things do not work in a democracy. Democracy is a give and take. "The government has not taken any initiative. They want to pass bills. At the same time they do not want to take concerns raised by Opposition parties on board," Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters after the all-party meet.
The meeting saw the Congress upping the ante against the government after Congress President Sonia Gandhi set the tone for the party's strident line in a meeting of Congress parliamentary party earlier in the day. "The government came without any proposal. They did not have any suggestion and made only an appeal. The meeting was totally unproductive," Communist Party of India-Marxist’s Sitaram Yechury told reporters after the meeting.
Rejecting Congress charge that the government was being arrogant in not listening to Opposition demands, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said that the government has always "walked the extra mile" to accommodate Opposition's views and cited examples of referring GST and Real Estate Bills to the select committee on the demand of the Congress.
While expressing the government's readiness to discuss any issue and offer intervention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Naidu at the same time made it clear that there will be "no resignation" as the NDA ministers have done "nothing illegal or immoral".
He also slammed the Congress for running a "campaign of calumny" against Swaraj, who he said is one of the "best performing ministers" of the government. When asked by the Opposition members on what is the new thing the government was offering them, Naidu cited the offer of intervention by Modi during discussions. While the government claimed that the Congress got isolated on its stand of "no resignation, no discussion" line, no sign of any chance of smooth functioning of Parliament emerged after the meeting.
While the Congress had the full backing of the JD-U and Left parties, the Trinamool Congress, Biju Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and some other parties were keen that Parliament functioned.