House proceedings washed out for week

New Delhi: Parliament proceedings were washed out for the entire week as Opposition parties and ruling BJP ally kept protesting unrelentingly over various issues, including the PNB scam and a special category status to Andhra Pradesh.

The first week of the second leg of the Budget Session hardly saw any business getting transacted in both Houses of Parliament.

On Friday, Lok Sabha continued to witness ruckus as MPs, including BJP ally TDP members kept raising their respective demands. The lower house of Parliament failed to transact any business during this entire week.

While Opposition parties including the Congress and the TMC have been demanding arrest of Nirav Modi in the PNB scam, TDP MPs have been demanding that the Centre should grant a special category status to Andhra Pradesh. Former aviation minister and TDP member P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju, who resigned from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers on Thursday over his party’s demand, was seen standing with his party colleagues, in the Well of the lower house. AIADMK members were seen raising the Cauvery water dispute.

In Rajya Sabha, which saw the House taking up motion for election to the committee on public undertakings, public accounts committee and the committee on welfare of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, had to be adjourned soon after the House tried to take up the Zero Hour as the opposition parties started protesting over their respective demands.

The House was first adjourned within about 15 minutes after it had assembled in the morning till 2.30 pm and then adjourned for the day due to the continued protests.