NEW Delhi: Rajya Sabha proceedings were adjourned sine die Thursday without the customary closing remarks by the Chairman after the Shiv Sena and other opposition parties created a ruckus over price rise and the alleged misappropriation of funds collected to save aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.
As soon as the listed official papers were laid on the table, Shiv Sena MPs including Sanjay Raut and Priyanka Chaturvedi were up on their feet, trying to raise the issue of an FIR registered against the BJP’s Kirit Somaiya for allegedly siphoning off donations collected for saving INS Vikrant.
The now-decommissioned aircraft carrier is part of the Navy’s glorious history and played an important role in the 1971 India-Pakistan war. It was sent to the scrapyard in 2014.
Congress MPs supported the Shiv Sena with some remarking that the issue of spiralling prices of essential commodities including those of petrol, diesel and cooking gas wasn’t allowed to be raised in the entire session, but at least this scam should be discussed.
Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu, however, said he was not allowing the issue to be raised in the House and asked the MPs to return to their seats so that listed zero-hour mentions could be taken up.
Shiv Sena MPs trooped into the Well of the House, but Naidu was unmoved. He first called TMC’s Derek O’Brien and then the BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi to raise their zero-hour mentions.
“You can raise tomorrow, day after tomorrow anywhere you like but not here [in the House],” Naidu told the Shiv Sena and other opposition MPs.
As opposition MPs pestered, he said, Don’t unnecessarily register negative thoughts in my mind. “This is not allowed. This is not the way,” he told them.
Naidu ordered that nothing that the protesting MPs said would go on record. —PTI

Press Trust of India