The Opposition created an uproar in Parliament and even staged a walkout on Monday over the utterances by BJP MPs Parvesh Verma and Anurag Thakur during their campaigning in the Delhi Assembly polls.
Opposition members walked out of the Lok Sabha when Verma rose to initiate a debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address while the Congress raised slogans against Union minister Anurag Thakur. Rajya Sabha proceedings were also washed out as the Opposition raised slogans against the Government, demanding a debate on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Population Register (NPR).
As soon as Lok Sabha proceedings commenced, Congress-led Opposition protested in the lower house and continued slogan shouting against comments of Thakur and Verma with slogans “save India” , “ Save Democracy” and “ Save Constitution”.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said Government is silencing the voice of common people and accused ruling members as being “ Nakli Hindu”. He said the Government cannot silence people’s “boli” (voice) with “goli” (bullet). All through this, Thakur was answering questions related to his Ministry during question hour. AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi, who was to ask a question, rather shouted, “We are with Jamia, we are with students.”
At 12.10 Speaker Om Birla adjourned the house till 130 hrs. When the house resumed its proceedings opposition members, including those from the Congress and DMK, walked out of Lok Sabha as soon as Verma rose to initiate a debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address to protest his controversial remarks during a poll rally here.
Opposition benches raised slogans against the BJP MP like “Sharam Karo (Have Shame)”.
Speaker Om Birla said what a member says outside cannot be raised inside the House and that members should not set a “wrong precedent”.
Verma was barred by the Election Commission last week for four days for his controversial remarks made during an interview and at an election meeting.
The choice of Verma , a Delhi MP, as the first speaker by the BJP was obvious with Delhi set to go to poll on February 8.
Initiating the debate, Verma said India is proud to have such a President who has rejected the mercy plea of Nirbhaya convicts. Besides praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he also admired the speaker for making the House paperless and giving an opportunity to new members to speak.
He accused ruling AAP of not fulfilling promises it made to the people of Delhi and standing up with the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protestors. Verma also referred to the Shaheen Bagh sit-in, saying it is not a protest against CAA, rather people there are saying “Pakistan zindabad, and Assam and Kashmir should be separated from India.”