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Opposition din forces Parliament's adjournment

The Lok Sabha was adjourned till 1400 hrs today following uproarious scenes in the house by the Opposition demanding a rollback of subsidy cuts urea, LPG and essential items supplied through the PDS.

As soon as the house assembled, the entire Opposition stood up and demanded that question hour be suspended and the subsidy be restored.

After ten minutes of interruption, Speaker G M C Balayogi adjourned the house till 1400 hrs.

As the opposition was shouting slogans of 'roll back, roll back subsidies', Akhilesh Singh (SP), Ramdas Athawale (RPI), and another member were seen rushing towards the podium and demanding that the subsidy cuts be rolled back.

At this stage, Balayogi invited leader of the Opposition Sonia Gandhi to make her point. When the BJP members opposed, the chair ruled that the Opposition had given a notice for suspension of question hour. Therefore, he was allowing the leader of the opposition to put forward her point of view.

Gandhi said that at the beginning of the session, they had demanded restoration of subsidies for essential commodities issued through PDS, urea and LPG as it was affecting millions of middle and lower middle class people and farmers. She said the Opposition had hoped that during passage of the Finance Bill, the government would ease this burden but regretted that the government got more insensitive to the plight of the millions.

Asserting that the opposition was renewing its demand for rolling back subsidy cuts, Mrs Gandhi said many political parties were demonstrating outside Parliament to highlight the issue.

At this stage, the chair intervened to say that she can raise these issues during zero hour and pleaded that they allow Question Hour to be carried out, as it was very important.

But the left parties were opposed to the chair's request. Leader of the CPI-M Somnath Chatterjee wanted to say something but in the din, nothing could be heard.

As the commotion continued, the chair adjourned the house till 1400 hrs.

In the Rajya Sabha too, the agitating Opposition stalled question hour over the issue of the nationwide industrial strike and forced the adjournment of the house till 1200 hrs.

As the house assembled for the day, the non-Congress Opposition was on its feet raising anti-government and pro-worker slogans. Later, some Congress members also joined the chorus.

All that was said was lost in the din.

From the Congress benches Suresh Pachouri was heard shouting that the poor man had been hit the most by the price rise.

He wanted chairman Krishan Kant to direct the government to take effective measures to check the prices.

This went on for about ten minutes. As the chairman could not restore order, he announced adjournment of the house till 1200 hrs.

UNI

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