Opposition stalls Parliament on Uttarakhand

Even as the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday sought cooperation from Opposition, the second half of the Budget session began on a stormy note. The Opposition didn't allow any business in the Rajya Sabha and in Lok Sabha. Congress staged an impromptu 'dharna' in the well over the imposition of the President's rule in Uttarakhand. Congress spokesman Jairam Ramesh told in a press conference that the party's protest would continue in the Rajya Sabha.

Congress group leader Mallikarjun Kharge, squatted on the floor of Lok Sabha, even as the party MPs raised slogans from the well after the Speaker did not allow them raise the issue at the start of the House with the question hour. The government took stand in the Rajya Sabha that the matter was sub judice before the Supreme Court and hence it could not be discussed, prompting the Congress and other opposition MPs to repeatedly storm into the well and force adjournments.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan also did not allow debate since the matter was sub judice, rejecting adjournment motion of the Opposition, but allowed Kharge to speak briefly, cutting him short even as he started talking on a series of unconstitutional acts by the government to pull down all Opposition-ruled states, starting with Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand to seize power in every state.

Home minister Rajnath Singh asserted that the ruling BJP had nothing to do with the crisis in Uttarakhand as it was an internal crisis of the Congress. The ruckus died down in the Lok Sabha to let it transact the listed business but not so in the Rajya Sabha where the Congress members forced repeated adjournments to protest against the government's hand in engineering defections and then imposing the President's rule.