Parliament budget session highlights: Lok Sabha expunges Sambit Patra's remark on Rahul Gandhi

Proceedings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day. Parliament will reconvene on Wednesday at 11am.

Updates to this live blog end here.

Parliament budget session live: Lok Sabha proceedings were adjourned briefly Tuesday evening as Congress members protested against a remark by BJP leader Sambit Patra on Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi.

Participating in a debate on the supplementary demands for grants, excess grants, and the Manipur budget, Patra referred to a Congress leader's remark on cricketer Rohit Sharma's fitness and compared the cricket captain with Gandhi.

As Congress members protested, Sandhya Rai, who was in the Chair, said the remarks would be removed. But Congress members continued their protest.

Parliament budget session live: Amid the National Education Policy and delimitation row, Congress leader V Hanumantha Rao on Tuesday said that Hindi should not be imposed on them as it will be an "injustice" to the South.

"Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin's issue is that Hindi is being forcibly imposed on us, and if delimitation happens, then it will be injustice to the South. All parties will help in this. Why is injustice being done to the South? We pay equal taxes, and Hindi should not be imposed on us," Rao told ANI.

Parliament budget session live: TMC MP Ritabrata Banerjee accused the Centre of withholding funds meant for education programmes in opposition-ruled states of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

"Without any consultations with the state governments, the NEP (National Education Policy) has been forcibly thrust upon states," Banerjee said, adding the West Bengal government was forced to stop the four-year graduation course with the interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary framework.

Taking a dig at the government over NEP 2020, he said it speaks of promoting critical thinking, scientific temper, and constitutional values, but topics that are fundamental to science, such as the periodic table, Darwin's theory of evolution, Pythagoras theorem, and Michael Faraday's contribution to the scientific understanding of electricity and magnetism, have been done away with.

Parliament budget session live: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board Tuesday announced it will hold a protest against the Waqf (Amendment) Bill on March 17 at Jantar Mantar here to invoke the conscience of "secular" political parties, including those part of the NDA government.

The 'dharna' was to be held on March 13 but has been postponed due to holidays, including Holi, and Parliament may also not meet that day, the board's spokesperson SQR Ilyas said.

He also said that many MPs have been invited to the protest. (PTI)

Parliament budget session live: BJP National General Secretary Tarun Chugh on Tuesday slammed the DMK and other parties in the INDIA bloc, accusing them of making misleading statements on the National Education Policy (NEP, 2020). Chugh said that NEP 2020 is the first education policy under which education should be imparted in the mother tongue.

Parliament budget session live: Congress MP Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday accused the government of pushing people associated with the ruling party's ideology in educational institutions through the "backdoor" by only hiring contractual faculty and not making regular appointments against thousands of vacancies in central universities and schools.

"This is a clever way of getting in people with the ruling party's ideology through the backdoor in the educational institutions," he said.

Parliament budget session live: Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi asserted that peace in Manipur cannot be restored through the barrel of a gun and that only a political solution can be the way out.

Urging PM Modi to visit the state, Gogoi asked him to apprise the House about the rationale for imposing the President's Rule in the state. "What is the state of Vidhan Sabha in the state - is it dissolved or in suspended animation," the Congress leader sought to know.

Parliament budget session live: The Immigration and Foreigners Bill 2025 was introduced in the Lok Sabha today by the Union Home Minister of State, Nityanand Rai. The bill aims to modernize and consolidate India's immigration laws.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Union MoS Nityanand Rai said, "On behalf of Amit Shah, I propose that the requirement of passport or travel document be settled in respect of persons entering and exiting India, certain powers be granted to the Central Government to regulate matters related to foreigners, including the requirement of visa and registration, and permission be given to establish a bill dealing with matters connected or incidental to them."

Parliament budget session live: Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan alleged that neither the Rural Development Minister nor the Agriculture Minister of Tamil Nadu has attended his state-level meetings in the past.

“I would like to request that the Central Government is committed to providing benefits...We salute the great people of Tamil Nadu, salute the Tamil culture, salute the Tamil language, we are all sons of Mother India, there is no question of discrimination. We will serve the people of Tamil Nadu and the farmers with humility,” he said.

Speaking during a protest against education minister Dharmendra Pradhan for his now expunged ‘uncivilised’ remark, DMK MP Kanimozhi demanded an apology from the minister and said an expunging of his remark does not suffice.

"We (DMK) have a privilege motion against the Minister. We requested the Speaker to take it up. This is not a small issue, the union government has no right, because it is a budgetary allocation for TN for SSA, just because they are forcing NEP on us, it is in the concurrent list, so they have to take our acceptance, before withholding the money, they have no right to do so. They have no right to withhold the money which is going to the students, it is ruining the future of the students. We expect the Minister to apologise and release the fund," said the DMK leader.

Parliament budget session live: TMC's Kalyan Banerjee called education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's remarks on NEP 'despicable.

"All India Trinamool Congress support supports the stand taken by DMK. Yesterday, I was there in the House, and the language used by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was deprecated. It is unexpected that a central minister would use this language for the people of Tamil Nadu. I demand that either he apologises or he is removed as a minister from the cabinet. The PM should hear what your ministers are saying. Their words and body language are highly depreciable. TMC stands for the people of Tamil Nadu and the DMK party itself," Banerjee said.

Parliament budget session live: Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi sparred with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman over the topic of respecting the incumbent and former Prime Ministers. The Lok Sabha is discussing budget and supplementary grants for Manipur.

A DMK delegation met former Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik and BJD to join a meeting on delimitation.

"On behalf of Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, we have come here to formally invite Naveen Babu to attend the meeting which is going to be held on March 22 in Chennai. It was lovely meeting him for such a long time. He shares our concerns. He fears that unfair delimitation will be not good for our states. States including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra, Telangana, Karnataka, Punjab, and Odisha are going to be directly affected," DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran told PTI.

Parliament budget session live: CPI is demanding a statement from home minister Amit Shah on the issue of delimitation.

"We have already expressed our views of delimitation, it will hamper the interest of southern states and other states who have controlled population. There is an apprehension of a reduction of 26 seats from southern India and it should not happen. So we are opposing, we demand an open statement by the Home Minister on the floor of the House," CPI MP P Sandosh told PTI.

Parliament budget session live: Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla declined all adjournment motions submitted by the opposition.

Parliament budget session live: Rajya Sabha reconvenes for question hour after earlier being adjourned till noon amid opposition protests.

Parliament budget session live: Both TMC and Congress have backed DMK over NEP issue and have demanded an apology from union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan for his remarks on the issue.

Parliament budget session 2025 live: Rajya Sabha was adjourned till 12 pm after a ruckus by opposition MPs over discussion under rule 267.

Parliament budget session 2025 live: Ruckus continues in Rajya Sabha over opposition demand for discussion on various issues.

Parliament budget session 2025 live: Question hour proceedings are ongoing in Lok Sabha.

Parliament budget session 2025 live: Various MPs from South India are wearing black shirts to protest for fair delimitation and representation, DMK says.

Scores of opposition MPs submitted notices of adjournment under rule 267 but were declined by Rajya Sabha deputy chairman for not conforming to rules. The decision caused a ruckus in Rajya Sabha.

Parliament budget session 2025 live: Proceedings have begun for the day in both houses.

Parliament budget session 2025 live: Congress MP Manikram Tagore slammed Dharmendra Pradhan's remarks on NEP.

" It is very unfortunate...the language of the Union Education Minister was very unparliamentary. It is good to see that the Speaker prevailed upon the Minister, and he withdrew the statement. The way BJP and RSS degrade the language of Parliament shows the arrogance of BJP," Tagore told ANI.