Both Houses adjourned till 2 pm over delimitation issue

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Floor leaders of Opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday demanded uniform rules for all MPs including MPs from the ruling BJP regarding conduct of members in the House.

DMK Rajya Sabha members arrived in the House wearing tee-shirts that displayed slogans against the soon to be held delimitation exercise. This prompted the Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar to adjourn the House till 12 noon.

Dhankhar, however, refrained from spelling out the reason for adjourning the House abruptly.

He called a meeting of floor leaders at 11:30 am to discuss what he "saw a little while ago".

During the meeting of floor leaders, representatives of the Opposition parties pointed out that BJP MPs regularly come to the House wearing lotus symbol on their cloths.

DMK MPs also refused the remove the tee-shirts which had " Fair Delimitation - Tamil Nadu would fight, Tamil Nadu would win" written on them.

When the House resumed sitting on 12 noon, DMK MPs were seen in the House wearing the same tee-shirts.

Deputy Chairman Harivansh, who was in the chair, then adjourned the House for another 15 minutes.

When the House met again, DMK MPs were still wearing the tee-shirts. Harivansh, who was in the chair, adjourned the House till two in the afternoon.

Later, talking to reporters, Tiruchi Siva, leader of the DMK in the Rajya Sabha, said delimitation would bring down the number of MPs from Tamil Nadu to 31 from the current strength of 39. The number of Lok Sabha MPs from Kerala would go down to 12 from the present 20, he Siva said.

"Tamil Nadu now has a share of 7.18 per cent members in Lok Sabha and we want its share to remain same", Siva said.

RJD Rajya Sabha member Manoj Kumar Jha said all INDIA block MPs were supporting the DMK on the issue of delimitation.

Lok Sabha was also adjourned till 2 pm after MPs belonging to DMK and its allies in Tamil Nadu arrived wearing tee-shirts demanding "fair delimitation".