Day 2 of Parliament marred by ‘SIR’ row, both Houses adjourned till tomorrow

New Delhi: Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned for the day on Tuesday, amid ongoing protests by the Opposition parties over Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar and sudden resignation of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar. The Houses will now reconvene on Wednesday.

Both Houses were adjourned minutes after reconvening, first till noon and 2 p.m. and then for the entire day.

Before the commencement of Day 2 of proceedings, the opposition parties organised a joint protest outside the ‘Makar Dwar’ of Parliament, raising alarm over ‘biased and partisan’ SIR exercise by the Election Commission of India in poll-bound Bihar. Many leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav and others, waved posters and placards alleging manipulation of electoral rolls in Bihar.

In Rajya Sabha, the morning proceedings got disrupted over uproar by members of the Opposition who demanded discussion on certain issues, including voter verification drive in Bihar, under SIR, and also the sudden resignation of Jagdeep Dhankhar from the post of Vice President of India.

As the Deputy Chairman Harivansh rejected the adjournment notices of Opposition members, including the one on Dhankhar’s resignation, the latter created ruckus in the House, raising slogans and also entering the well to protest rejection of their notices.

The House was adjourned till noon. When it again reconvened, it witnessed chaos and uproar, thus prompting the Chair to adjourn till 2 p.m. and then for the entire day.

In Lok Sabha, the House proceedings were disrupted for the second consecutive day on the back of noisy clamour from the Opposition demanding debate on ‘burning issues’. Opposition MPs stood up on their feet, raised slogans demanding urgent debate on SIR and Operation Sindoor, but the permission for the same was denied by Speaker Om Birla.

As the chaos escalated, the Speaker adjourned the House first till noon, then 2 p.m. and then for the entire day.

When the Lower House reconvened at 2 p.m., Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju also called out the ‘disruptive behaviour’ of the Opposition benches and lashed out at them for stalling the proceedings of the House.

Accusing the Opposition of devising ways to disrupt the House, he said that an agreement was reached in the meeting of Business Advisory Committee (BAC) on Monday, to discuss the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, but the Opposition chose to shift focus and was now creating a stir over SIR.

“In the BAC meeting, it was decided that there would be a discussion on Operation Sindoor, and a fixed time was agreed upon. All issues cannot be taken up at once. Yet, instead of cooperating, they came with placards and disrupted the House,” Rijiju said.

“We come prepared with legislative business, but the Opposition comes only to create disturbances,” he further said while charging the Opposition with wasting taxpayers’ money.

Notably, Parliament has seen a stormy start to the Monsoon Session. Day 1 of Parliamentary proceedings was marked by vociferous protests by the Opposition, which called for an urgent debate on issues like Pahalgam terror attack, Operation Sindoor, and SIR drive in Bihar.

Day 2 was no less disruptive with both Houses running for barely a few minutes. Tuesday’s disruption came against the backdrop of Jagdeep Dhankhar stepping down as the Vice President of India, citing health reasons.

IANS