NEW DELHI, 5 December 2006 — The ongoing protests against a controversial car project in West Bengal and Dalit hero B.R. Ambedkar’s statue desecration in Kanpur rocked the Indian Parliament yesterday with both houses plunging into pandemonium over them.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs created acrimonious scenes in both houses over the arrest of party President Rajnath Singh while visiting Singur, where Trinamool Congress has been agitating against the Tata Motors car project.
While Rajya Sabha (the upper house) was adjourned over the uproar, Lok Sabha (the lower house) witnessed a group of BJP MPs storming the well and indulging in shouting slogans against the Communist government in West Bengal.
In the Lok Sabha, question hour as well as Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s statement over the collapse of a bridge on a train in Bhagalpur in which over 40 people were killed, went on smoothly.
As Bhagalpur MP and BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussein demanded the railway minister’s resignation over the incident, his party members ran to the well shouting slogans against the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led government in West Bengal for arresting Rajnath Singh.
Even as a determined Speaker Somnath Chatterjee insisted that business should go on, the BJP MPs continued their shouting for almost an hour till the house adjourned for lunch.
The BJP MPs, including former minister Ananth Kumar and party deputy leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra, were shouting slogans like “Down with communist government,” “It’s a good for nothing government in West Bengal” and “Release Rajnath Singh”.
Chatterjee, who announced the issue was a state issue, asked Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to reply to a discussion on price rise.
He also allowed other members to raise issues of public importance.
