Poster War Rocks Parliament, Leads to House Adjournment

NEW DELHI: An unprecedented poster war rocked  Parliament on Thursday after members of treasury benches turned up with placards in Lok Sabha to counter similar attempts by Congress MPs, marking a new low in Parliamentary practices and leading to adjournment of the House without transacting any legislative business third day in a row.

Congress MPs and treasury benches flashing placards came face to face, immediately after Lower House re-assembled at 12 noon. To counter the Congress’ “PM break your silence, sack Sushma Swaraj”, BJP MPs raised the pitch with a poster “The thief blaming the cop, those who distributes farmers’ land to son-in-law”.

Another BJP poster read: C”-for Congress, C-for Corruption, Assam-Goa-Watergate”.

Several ruling party members reached to the Well of the House already occupied by the Congress members.

Amid the high- pitched sloganeering, BJP MP from Dharwad Pralhad Joshi’s move to raise privilege issue against Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, added fuel to the fire, forcing adjournment for the day.

Even in the Rajya Sabha, treasury and Opposition Benches stuck to their guns on Lalitgate and Vyapam. The Upper House began with Congress leader Anand Sharma getting up to tell the Chair that they had given a notice for suspension of notice.

As BJP leaders heckled the Opposition Benches, Deputy Chairman P J Kurien pointed out that the notice had been allowed in last two days for a discussion, which was agreed by both government and Opposition.

With the House completely dysfunctional, Kurien adjourned the House till noon. But, even when the House reassembled for Question Hour, the Chair adjourned it within 2 minutes.

Similarly, when Rajya Sabha members restarted the session at 2 pm, the house ‘worked’ for just 8 minutes.

In total, the Upper House was ‘in session’ for just 35 minutes.

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