SP members run riot in Rajya Sabha

After an hour of high drama and one of their members being asked to leave the House, Samajwadi Party MPs staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. HT reports.

After an hour of high drama and one of their members being asked to leave the House, Samajwadi Party MPs staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

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The bill for reservation in jobs for SC/ST community members was later taken up, with most parties lending their support.

It couldn’t have been more worse a day for the SP turnaround, with the Supreme Court on Thursday declining to recall its earlier order of directing a CBI probe into the allegation of assets of Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav being disproportionate to their known sources of income.

When the House convened around 2 pm, SP members — barring Jaya Bachchan — rushed to the Well, shouting slogans against the bill. Deputy chairman PJ Kurien remained adamant against their demand for adjourning the House.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath said action should be taken against the members under the relevant rules since they were disrupting the proceedings of the House. Kurien asked the members to resume their seats.

As slogan-shouting continued, Kurien named SP member Arvind Kumar Singh for disobeying the Chair by invoking Rule 255 and asked him to leave the House. Singh, however, refused to leave. At this, Kurien adjourned the House. When the House re-assembled, similar situation prevailed and Chair asked SP leader in the House Ram Gopal Yadav to persuade the member to leave.

Yadav, however, argued that if the Chair wanted to expel all the SP members, it should take the “sense of the House” on it.

Reason behind the high drama is that the SP is content to leave the fight for another day. “We will put up a stiff protest on the quota bill in the Lok Sabha, where we have bigger numbers,” Agarwal said. Party said that its “softened stand” on quota bill was not linked to the Supreme Court verdict in DA case against Mulayam Singh Yadav.