Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was scheduled to reply to the President’s Address in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, will not do so after proceedings in the Lower House were adjourned till Thursday amid sustained ruckus by Opposition members.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, addressed the House on a range of issues including the caste census, women’s empowerment, central government schemes, and the situation in Manipur. Criticising the BJP and the RSS, Kharge claimed that neither organisation had ever had a woman president. Referring to the violence in Manipur, he remarked that while Vasco da Gama took 11 months to sail from Portugal to India and Christopher Columbus reached North America from Spain in two months, the Prime Minister took two years to visit the state despite the severity of the crisis.
In the Lok Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi said he would present former Army chief General MM Naravane’s memoir to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Prime Minister was expected to respond to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address during the ongoing Budget Session. The motion follows President Droupadi Murmu’s speech to a joint sitting of Parliament at the start of the session on January 28.
Tensions between the government and the opposition escalated on Tuesday after eight opposition MPs were suspended for alleged unruly conduct. Rahul Gandhi has accused the government of preventing him from completing his speech during the debate on the Motion of Thanks.
Both Houses are set to continue the discussion on Thursday. In the Lok Sabha, the motion was introduced by Sarbananda Sonowal and seconded by Tejasvi Surya, with 18 hours allocated for debate and the Prime Minister expected to reply. In the Rajya Sabha, BJP MP Sadanand Master moved the motion.
Meanwhile, eight Congress MPs, Manickam Tagore, Kiran Reddy, Prashant Padole, Hibi Eden, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Gurjeet Aujla, S. Venkat Raman, and Dean Kuriakose, have been suspended for the remainder of the session.
(This is a breaking story. More to follow.)
