NEW DELHI: The second half of the budget session is just days away from a washout, having transacted little more than the passage of the Union Budget, even as the chaotic scenes in the
Rajya Sabha worsened on Monday with almost the entire opposition trooping into the well, forcing Chairman Venkaiah Naidu to adjourn the House in minutes.
Even by the tumultuous record of the past weeks, the well of the House was swamped as parties pressed causes ranging from Cauvery water to the
Supreme Court ruling on the SC/ST Act in the midst of a melee.
No significant business has been transacted by the two Houses in the last 18 days, making the current period one of the least productive in the 16th
Lok Sabha.
Soon after the House met, AIADMK, TDP and other opposition members, including those from Congress, began raising slogans.
Amid pandemonium, while ministers laid papers, leader of the opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad insisted that many issues related to bank frauds, Dalits and minorities needed to be discussed.
Despite assertions by the chairman and junior minister for parliamentary affairs Vijay Goel that both the government and the opposition were ready for discussions, the agitating members did not return to their seats, following which the chairman said MPs were "making a mockery of the country's parliamentary system", and adjourned the House. Similar scenes prevailed in the Lok Sabha, where AIADMK MPs continued protests in the well of the House, demanding that the Centre constitute the Cauvery water management board. While question hour was washed out completely, exchange of allegations and counter-allegations continued between the treasury and opposition benches in the second half as well. While Congress MP Sushmita Dev sought to move an adjournment motion to discuss the CBSE paper leak, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said she had to ascertain the admissibility of no-confidence motions before allowing any other business to be transacted.
With AIADMK MPs unrelenting in their protests and refusing to return to their seats, Mahajan announced her inability to ascertain admissibility of the no-confidence motions. Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar targeted Congress, saying its MPs were disrupting the House since the start of the budget session.
