New Delhi, Feb 5 (IANS) The Lok Sabha was briefly adjourned on Thursday after the Opposition created a ruckus in the House by raising slogans.

Speaker Om Birla advised the Opposition MPs to maintain the decorum of the House; however, when the sloganeering did not stop, the Lok Sabha was adjourned till noon.

This comes amid days of disruptions in the Parliament following the ex-Army chief’s book row and India-US trade deal.

Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address in Parliament, slated for 5 p.m., was postponed, as the Lok Sabha was adjourned till Thursday morning, over continued uproar and vociferous sloganeering from the Opposition members.

As the Lok Sabha reconvened at 5 p.m. on Wednesday to discuss the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, the House plunged into chaos with Opposition members erupting in protest, apparently enraged over the denial of permission to Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to take up excerpts from an article based on an unpublished book, containing the memoirs of former Army Chief General M.M. Naravane.

Sandhya Ray, officiating as the House Chairman, made an appeal to the lawmakers to stay seated and not disrupt the proceedings, but her appeals went unheeded.

Members from the Opposition Benches assembled in the Well of the House and kept flashing paper pamphlets.

The Lower House has remained plagued by repeated disruptions for the last two days, with the Union government and Opposition engaging in a fierce stand-off over raking up of India-China border skirmishes during August 2020.

Rahul Gandhi, leading the Congress’ charge, raised the issue of Chinese aggression during the Galwan stand-off while citing ‘uncomfortable facts’ from the memoirs of General Naravane, where he is understood to have written about ‘political indecision’ over the response mechanism to the then Chinese misadventures.

–IANS

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