Rajya Sabha adjourned for the day amid Opposition ruckus, sloganeering over Bihar electoral roll revision
Pointing to the rules, Deputy Chairman Harivansh urged members to 'strictly adhere to well-established customs and etiquette to be observed in the Council and respect each other's privilege to speak on the floor when permitted by the Chair.'
'Yesterday, it was unfortunately observed that some members, while not being in their designated seats, were attempting to disturb the Speaker,' he said.
The session began with the swearing-in of members from Tamil Nadu. Actor-politician Kamal Haasan of the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), which is an ally of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu, took oath as a Rajya Sabha member, marking his debut in the House. Three DMK members from Tamil Nadu also took the oath – S R Sivalingam, Rajathi S, and P Wilson. All of them took the oath in Tamil.
Later, Deputy Chairman Harivansh said he received 28 notices under Rule 267. Notices under this rule ask to suspend all listed business and discuss an important issue that the country is facing.
Notices by MPs, including Akhilesh Prasad Singh, A A Rahim, Saket Gokhale, Sushmita Dev, Jebi Mather Hisham, Tiruchi Siva, John Brittas, and Manoj Kumar Jha demanded discussion on the concerns arising from the SIR of electoral rolls undertaken by the Election Commission in Bihar. Other notices from Opposition MPs under Rule 267 called for discussions on the alleged discrimination of Bengali migrant workers in other states, restoration of constitutional democracy in Manipur, and India's trade deal with the UK and the US.
Declining the notices, the Deputy Chairman pointed to 'detailed rulings on Rule 267 imparted by the Chair' in December 2022. This prompted an uproar from the Opposition. The Rajya Sabha has previously seen showdowns between Opposition members and former Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar over declining of notices under Rule 267.
When the House reconvened at 12 pm with Ghanshyam Tiwari in the Chair, Question Hour began amid sloganeering from Opposition members.
Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who was responding to a question, appealed to the Chair and Opposition members to let him respond to a question on his ministry. 'This House is the temple of democracy. The soul of democracy is dialogue and discussion. I would like to respond to the questions,' he said.
With continuing sloganeering from the Opposition, the House was adjourned for the day, and is set to meet again on Monday.
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Here, large issues, from the recent Operation Sindoor to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, which has raised genuine fears of disenfranchisement of large numbers of voters, have lined up, and the House has yet to properly let them in. As the Monsoon session enters its second week, then, on one side is the shadow-play of Dhankhar's exit, and on the other side an Opposition clutching at the smaller issue even as, on the larger issue, it does not seem to be getting a grip. Leaders of the Opposition have proposed to host a farewell dinner for Dhankhar, ostensibly to embarrass the government, twist the knife in. But on SIR, the Congress-led Opposition's legitimate criticisms of the Election Commission's impractical timelines in a poll-bound state are in danger of being clouded by its own disunity and Rahul Gandhi's loose and lurching pot shots at the EC. 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