Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday expressed his dismay over the protests taking place inside Parliament over the Telangana issue, and said democracy in India was being harmed as a result.
"My heart bleeds to see what is happening in the House. This is bad for democracy," television channels quoted Dr. Singh, as saying shortly after Members of Parliament from the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) nearly came to blows inside the Lok Sabha and had to be held back by other lawmakers.
The proposal to divide Andhra Pradesh and carve out a new state of Telangana led to protests a repeated adjournment of both houses of Parliament on Wednesday.
In the Lok Sabha, four union ministers-K.S. Rao, D.Purandeshwari, Chiranjeevi and K. Surya Prakash Reddy - left their seats and rushed towards the Speaker's chair to protest.
They belong to the Seemandhra region, which is strongly opposed to the division of Andhra Pradesh.
Minister for Human Resource Development M.Pallam raju was quoted by NDTV, as saying: "There is widespread perception that injustice is being done, it is expected of us to put up a final battle in Lok Sabha."
More From This Section
Since this session began on February 5, Parliament has been repeatedly disrupted.
On Tuesday, the Congress high command sent out a message that it would not tolerate dissent within its ranks by expelling six of its Lok Sabha members who had moved a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Singh over the Telangana proposal.
The session ends on February 21.