Oppn, Govt unable to shake off RSS mania

No sooner had the Chair called out Yadav’s name, Treasury bench members, including Madan Lal Khurana, Rajiv Pratap Reddy, Vaiko and some others were on their feet demanding they be given the floor first instead of the SP leader whom they accused, among others, of being responsible for disrupting proceedings of the house for the past ten days.

Naidu assured the ruling benches that he would allow Khurana immediately after Yadav concluded, but they remained unrelenting.

The ruling alliance members wanted an assurance from the Opposition that they would hear the Treasury benches after Yadav’s speech. However, no such assurance was forthcoming.

As the verbal duel between Treasury and Opposition benches continued for 25 minutes, Naidu adjourned the House for the day.

In a bid to pacify the Treasury benches, Naidu earlier said he had given Yadav the floor first in keeping with democratic traditions and that the Chair would take care of their interests.

This remark drew loud jeers from the ruling benches which said, "they cannot be called democratic as they had held the House to ransom for the past ten days".

Soon after it met in the morning, the House was adjourned for an hour by Speaker G M C Balayogi amid uproarious scenes with Opposition members protesting the installation of a "minority" NDA Government in Bihar by Governor V C Pandey.

This was followed by another pandemonium on the RSS issue with the Samajwadi Party members trooping into the well of the house and demanding that the Chair announce its decision on when the Lok Sabha would take up discussion on the subject.

The House witnessed heated exchanges between the Opposition and Treasury benches with the latter taking exception to what they called the Chair buckling under pressure from a handful of Opposition members.

Regretting that no business had been transacted in the past ten days due to RSS and Bihar issues, Khurana said the House should not be allowed to be held to ransom.