The Lok Sabha was on Wednesday adjourned for the rest of the day as the Opposition continued its protest against the farm laws during the Budget session.
Earlier in the day, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad urged the Centre to repeal the three laws. He told the Rajya Sabha that the British had also withdrawn a farming law during their rule.
The Centre and the Opposition parties came to an agreement on the discussion of farm laws. The 15-hour deliberations will take place in the Rajya Sabha, where the Question Hour has been suspended for two days.
Opposition parties, including the Congress, on Tuesday had staged a walkout four times from the Upper House after their demand for suspension of business of the day to take up the farmers’ agitation was rejected by Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu.
Here are the top updates of the day.
7.45 pm: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar tells the Rajya Sabha that the deaths of four Tamil Nadu fishermen in Sri Lanka is unacceptable.
Read more here: Death of TN fishermen in Sri Lanka unacceptable, matter taken up with Colombo, says foreign minister
7.42 pm: The Centre tells the Lok Sabha that India has appropriately responded to China’s attempts of transgression in several areas along the Line of Actual Control, India Today reports.
7.36 pm: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor criticises the Centre for clubbing the debate on the farm laws with the president’s address. “I just cannot understand the attitude of the Govt and the Speaker in refusing a discussion on the #FarmersProtests & instead insisting on clubbing it with the debate on the President’s Address,” he says. “Parliament exists to give people’s representatives a voice on burning issues of the day!”
Tharoor adds: “If a debate were allowed to happen, MPs could voice the concerns of their constituents, the farmers and propose solutions to the crisis. But GoI [Government of India] is stubbornly refusing the Opposition’s request for a debate as they refused to agree to the farmer unions’ demands. This is undemocratic.”
7.30 pm: Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh alleges that the Congress has made a backdoor deal with the BJP to not aggressively speak out against the farm laws in the Parliament, PTI reports. “Today, when AAP MPs were marshalled out from Rajya Sabha, the Congress party remained silent,” he adds.
5.35 pm: In the Rajya Sabha, the BJP urges Opposition parties not make the farmers’ protest another Shaheen Bagh, The Indian Express reports. Shaheen Bagh had become a symbol of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act last year.
5.31 pm: The Lok Sabha is adjourned till 7 pm amid the Opposition’s protests against the farm laws, ANI reports.
4.10 pm: Congress MPs demanding a special package for tea workers in Kerala and Tamil Nadu stage a protest in the Parliament premises, ANI reports.
3.42 pm: Eleven MPs from the Shiromani Akali Dal, Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Indian Union Muslim League, the Bahujan Samaj Party, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Congress gives notices of adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha, ANI reports.
2.49 pm: Azad demands that the government take back the three farm laws, ANI reports. “The British too had once withdrawn a farm law during its rule,” the Congress leader says, according to NDTV.
He condemns the violence during the Republic Day rally and urges Prime Minister Narendra Modi to form a committee for people missing since the clashes.
2.43 pm: Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad demands action against those who indulged in violence at the Red Fort during the Republic Day rally, ANI reports. He adds that no innocent farmer leader should not be implicated in false cases.
12.54 pm: Biju Janata Dal MP Prasanna Acharya, while speaking in the Rajya Sabha, wonders why the government cannot give a legal guarantee on minimum support price instead of issuing verbal assurances, reports The Indian Express.
12.47 pm: On the direction of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the Lok Sabha Secretariat rolls out the Parliamentary Research and Information Support to Members, or PRISM, to provide round-the-clock research and information support to MPs, reports NDTV. According to the official release, the dedicated team of officers, PRISM will receive calls and messages from members round-the-clock and provide them the necessary support at the earliest possible time.
12.12 pm: The farmers’ protest has caused inconvenience to the residents of Delhi and its neighbouring states, the central government said in Parliament, in response to a question on the barricading of the city’s borders, reports NDTV.
“Delhi Police has informed that Ghazipur, Chilla, Tikri and Singhu borders of the national Capital are blocked by agitating farmers and it is inconvenient to the residents of Delhi and neighbouring states,” Minister of State G Kishan Reddy says in a written reply. “In any agitation, there is financial loss incurred by people and governments.”
11.56 am: Five extra hours have been added to the time of discussions in the Rajya Sabha on a motion thanking President Ram Nath Kovind for his address to the joint sitting of Parliament to allow debate on the farmers’ protest against new laws, reports PTI.
11.45 am: Azad also speaks about the farmers protests. “Farmers are ours, not of the Congress, but of you and all of us,” he says in Parliament, addressing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We are with you when it comes to fighting against China and Pakistan. But why fight the farmers.”
11.43 am: Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad talks about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370, reports The Hindu. “I never heard Atal Bihari Vajpayee or any BJP leader who ever demanded that Jammu and Kashmir should be split into two,” he adds. “There was a demand for UT in only one district of Ladakh [Leh], not Kargil.”
11.40 am: Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu has cautioned MPs against recording proceedings of the House on mobile phones, saying such unauthorised acts and then sharing it on social media may be a breach of Parliamentary privilege and contempt of the House, reports PTI.
10.03 am: Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu has suspended three Aam Aadmi Party MPs – Sanjay Singh, ND Gupta, and Sushil Gupta – after sloganeering inside the Rajya Sabha, reports News18.
9.48 am: The farmer protests will be discussed for 15 hours in Parliament, the Centre has said in a development in its talks with the Opposition, reports NDTV. The deliberations will take place in the Rajya Sabha, where the Question Hour has been suspended for two days.
9.15 am: Congress MP Rajeev Satav gives a Zero Hour notice in Rajya Sabha over demand for withdrawal of three farm laws, reports India Today.
9.06 am: The Opposition, led by the Congress, has submitted a slew of suspension of business notices in Rajya Sabha over the farmers’ agitation, reports News18. The notices have been tabled before Vice Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu by Congress MPs Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India, All India Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the CPI(M).
9.04 am: Proceedings for the day begin in Rajya Sabha.
9.08 am: A high-decibel session is expected in both Houses of Parliament today, with discussions over the new farm laws on the cards. Opposition parties including the Congress on Tuesday staged a walk out four times from the Upper House after their demand for suspension of business of the day to take up a discussion on more than two-month-old farmers’ agitation was rejected by Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu.
Here are the top updates from Tuesday
- The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day amid protests by Opposition leaders against the three farming laws.The Opposition staged a walk out from Rajya Sabha after Chairperson Venkaiah Naidu postponed discussions on the new legislations till Wednesday. The Upper House was later adjourned for the fourth time and final time for the day.
- The Centre has been given an extension to frame and implement the Citizenship Amendment Act by the committees on subordinate legislation in both the Houses of the Parliament. While the Lok Sabha committee granted an extension till April 9, the Upper House panel gave the government time till July 9.
- The Centre informed the Lok Sabha during the Budget session that it will not compensate the families of farmers who lost a member during the protests against the agricultural laws.
- The Ministry of Home Affairs said matters related to religious conversions are primarily the concerns of state governments and that the Centre was not planning to enact any anti-conversion law. The ministry also said that law enforcement agencies take action whenever such instances of violations come to the fore.