BJP MP Kirit Somaiya. (File Photo)
Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned Lok Sabha for a short while on Wednesday after heated arguments between BJP MP Kirit Somaiya and Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Kalyan Banerjee and Idris Ali took an unforeseen turn during Zero Hour. Somaiya on one side and the TMC leaders on the other advanced menacingly towards the Well of the House after the BJP member raised the issue of an alleged mob attack on four women in West Bengal.
Somaiya said four women had been attacked in Jalpaiguri, and two of them stripped. “Such incidents are happening in West Bengal, which has a woman chief minister,” he said.
Somaiya also mentioned alleged lynching incidents in Kerala, where, he said, a man named Manik Roya, 32, was killed recently after being dubbed a chicken thief. He said that Asif, 27, Shashidhara Kurup, 62, and a pregnant woman were lynched in the southern state on January 28.
While TMC leaders Roy and Idris Ali were already agitated, Somaiya’s reference to the Kerala incidents provoked Left members, who also started protesting.
As tempers ran high, Banerjee and Ali walked across the Well of the House towards Somaiya, who also moved forward towards the Well.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar and some others from the treasury benches intervened to pacify the angry TMC members. Amid the din, Mahajan adjourned proceedings for 10 minutes.
When the House met again, Somaiya demanded that Home Minister Rajnath Singh make a statement on the incidents of lynchings in various states. Expressing anguish over the conduct of members from both sides, Mahajan said that while she understood that members at times got angry, they should not cross the limit.
Speaking during Zero Hour, another BJP member, Om Birla, alleged that the Congress is dividing the country over religion and caste. Birla, the MP from Kota, Rajasthan, said action was being taken by the state government in the case of Kheta Ram, a Dalit man who was beaten to death, allegedly for having an affair with a Muslim woman.