Rajya Sabha Adjourned Till 12pm Over Bihar Electoral Roll Dispute

Rajya Sabha adjourned amid uproar over Bihar voter list revision; Opposition demands discussion as 56+ hours of session time lost.

Rajya Sabha Adjourned Till 12pm Over Bihar Electoral Roll Dispute

Source : PTI

New Delhi, Aug 8 (PTI) The Rajya Sabha was adjourned till 12 noon on Friday as Opposition MPs created a ruckus over various issues, including the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.

Deputy Chairman Harivansh rejected the notices given by members under Rule 267, amid continuing demand by Opposition MPs to discuss the SIR issue in the Upper House.

Soon after papers were laid in the House, Deputy Chairman Harivansh said he has received 20 notices under Rule 267.

"It's interesting to note that members are often giving suspension notices to discuss a wide variety of subjects..." he said.

"Today's notices contain five different issues on which suspension of business has been sought by members... It appears that notices under rule 267 are being used as a tool to create disorder in the House," he said, resulting in an uproar from the Opposition benches.

Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien on Monday said that all notices will be on the SIR issue.

"Today, on behalf of all of us, let's make a commitment on Monday morning, we will submit 40 notices all on SIR," he said.

John Brittas of CPI (M) said the Rule 267 should be scrapped, while Congress's Pramod Tiwari said the Opposition wants the House to function, and the discussion on the SIR issue should be taken up.

Tiruchi Siva of DMK said the rules should not just be on paper, but also in practice.

The Chair, however, said 56 hours and 49 minutes of the House's time have so far been lost.

He said so far in the session, they have only taken up 13 starred questions, five Zero Hour submissions, and 17 special mentions. This led to uproar from Opposition benches, and MPs were also raising slogans.

The Deputy Chairman then adjourned the House till 12 pm. PTI AO DRR

(This report has been published as part of an auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)