Lok Sabha adjourned till 12 noon amid opposition protests over Bihar voter roll revision

Lok Sabha proceedings were on Monday adjourned till 12 noon due to noisy protests by opposition parties demanding a discussion on the voter roll revision exercise in Bihar.

The House could not function properly even for a single day last week, ever since the Monsoon session began on July 21, due to repeated adjournments following opposition protests over the demand for a discussion on Operation Sindoor and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar initiated by the Election Commission.

As soon as the House met at 11 am, opposition members were on their feet, and some of them even came to the Well of the House shouting slogans and showing placards.

Initially Speaker Om Birla ignored the protests and continued the business by allowing Union Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to reply to a question during the designation time of Question Hour.

Since the protests continued and a member tore some papers, Birla warned the opposition members not to resort to such acts besides sloganeering and showing placards.

"Why are you disrupting the proceedings of the House in a systematic manner? Why don't you allow the House to function? You are not even ready for a discussion on Operation Sindoor," he said.

The Speaker asked Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to intervene and persuade the opposition members not to protests and take part in the proceedings.

"Please maintain the dignity of the House. Parliament is the representative House of 140 crore people, where important issues are supposed to be discussed. But you are disrupting the House functioning in a systematic matter," he said.

As the opposition members ignored his pleas, Birla adjourned the House till 12 noon.

The opposition has been demanding a discussion on Operation Sindoor, under which armed forces attacked Pakistani terror sites and defence installations for three days beginning May 7 following the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 in which 26 people were killed.

It is also seeking a discussion on the SIR in Bihar.

On Friday, the Opposition and the government had agreed to a debate on Operation Sindoor on Monday.