RS adjourned till 2 pm amid opposition ruckus on revocation of suspension of 12 MPs

The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday was adjourned till 2 pm as the opposition parties disrupted proceedings of the House seeking revocation of suspension of 12 MPs from the House.

The ruckus was created as Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu refused to consider the demand of Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge to revoke the suspension of the MPs and started the Zero Hour.

Soon after the House assembled for the day and papers were laid on the table, Kharge raised an issue with the Chair to acknowledge the suspension of 12 MPs.

The Chairman said the matter has already been discussed between the government and the Opposition and it had been decided that the matter would be considered if the MPs expressed regret for their actions that led to their suspension

Beginning the Zero Hour, Naidu said there nearly 50 notices and 26 had been selected. "Zero Hour is very important. You (Opposition members) should go to their seats."

Meanwhile, Opposition members including Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Aam Admi Party (AAP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Left, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Shiv Sena started sloganeering in the House, and several Opposition members also trooped into the Well of the House.

The Opposition parties raised slogans like "Revoke the suspension", "we want justice", and "dictatorship will not work in democracy".

Speaking in the Zero Hour, Yuvajana Sramika Rythu (YSR) Congress Party leader V Vijaysai Reddy hit out at the Congress, saying "it has not learnt lessons from the past..."

As the ruckus got more fierce and an argument started between Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi and AAP leader Sanjay Singh, the Chairman warned, "Sanjay Singh you are compounding offence".

Naidu later asked the marshals to send Singh outside the House. Before Singh was sent out, the Rajya Sabha Chairman adjourned the House till 2 pm when Special Mentions were being taken in the House.

Amid the din, the Chairman managed to run the Zero Hour.

In a move that angered the Opposition and set the stage for acrimonious exchanges, a dozen members of Opposition parties in Rajya Sabha were suspended from the winter session on the very first day on Monday following a motion brought in by the government.

The members were suspended for alleged unruly conduct towards the end of the monsoon session in August when marshals were called after Opposition members stormed the Well of the House during the passage of the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill, 2021.

The suspended members comprise six from the Congress, two each from Trinamool Congress and Shiv Sena, and one each from CPI and CPM: Phulo Devi Netam, Chhaya Verma, Ripun Bora, Rajamani Patel, Syed Nasir Hussain and Akhilesh Prasad Singh of Congress; Dola Sen, Shanta Chhetri of Trinamool Congress; Priyanka Chaturvedi, Anil Desai of Shiv Sena; Elamaram Kareem of CPM; and, Binoy Viswam of CPI.

All the suspended 12 MPs have been sitting on a dharna near Mahatma Gandhi statue inside the Parliament premises since they were suspended from the House, and the Opposition parties have been relentlessly disrupting House proceedings every day over the issue barring a few occasions.

( With inputs from ANI )

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