Lok Sabha MPs

Lok Sabha proceedings were on Monday adjourned for the day after the opposition's protests over allegations of George Soros-Congress link and Adani issue led to repeated disruptions. When the House met at 11 am after the weekend, the opposition members were on their feet, trying to raise their issues. A visibly agitated Speaker Om Birla asked the MPs to go back to their seats and allow the House to function. "Question Hour is significant. Allow the House to function properly. But you don't want to allow the House to run. The country wants the House to run. You are disrupting the proceedings of the House," he told the protesting members and adjourned the House till 12 noon. The noisy protests again forced an adjournment till 2 pm and then till 3 pm, before the proceedings were wrapped for the day. As soon as the House re-convened at noon, Congress members trooped into the well of the Lok Sabha raising slogans against the government. They were soon joined by Samajwadi Party ...

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday adjourned the House till 12 noon after opposition members, mostly Congress MPs, persisted on raising their issues. When the House met at 11 am, the opposition members were on their feet trying to raise their issues. A visibly agitated Birla asked the MPs to go back to their seats and allow the House to function. "Question Hour is significant. Allow the House to function properly. But you don't want to allow the House to run. The country wants the House to run. You are disrupting the proceedings of the House," he told the protesting members and adjourned the House till 12 noon. The adjournment came within a minute of the House resuming business after the weekend break. The proceedings of the House were washed out in the first week of the winter session starting November 25 due to protests by opposition members demanding that they be allowed to raise issues like the indictment of industrialist Gautam Adani in a US court and Sambhal violence. Las

Members of Parliament from both NDA and Opposition parties have expressed dissatisfaction with the Lok Sabha seating arrangement, feeling that it does not reflect their seniority or political stature

Bihar Police arrested a "former associate" of Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, and claimed that it was this man who threatened the Lok Sabha MP posing as a henchman of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi as part of a plan to demand heightened security for the parliamentarian. The accused, Ram Babu Yadav, allegedly made a video call to Pappu Yadav, demanding an apology to Lawrence Bishnoi for a post threatening to "finish off" the jailed gangster's network. Ram Babu Yadav was arrested from his native place in Bhojpur district on Tuesday. Purnea SP Kartikeya K Sharma on Tuesday said that the accused was formerly associated with Jan Adhikar Party (JAP), which Pappu Yadav had merged with the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Pappu Yadav contested and won from the Purnea Lok Sabha seat as an Independent candidate. "Purnea Police tracked Ram Babu Yadav's location and arrested him. Preliminary investigations revealed that he has no connections with any gang. He was formerly associated with JA

Almost the entire opposition in the Lok Sabha, including Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, on Tuesday staged a brief walkout from the House over the recent violence in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal. As soon as the House assembled to take up the Question Hour, Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav rose from his seat and raised the issue, seeking Speaker Om Birla's permission to speak on the subject. "This is a very serious matter. Five people have lost their lives," Yadav was heard saying. As the Speaker said members could raise the issue in the Zero Hour, Yadav and his party colleagues started to walk out in protest. Some SP members, meanwhile, rushed to the Well, raising slogans. While the SP members were protesting in the Well of the House, DMK member A Raja was seen exhorting other opposition members, including those from the Congress, to rise from their seats and join the SP protest. NCP and Shiv Sena-UBT members stood up in support of the Samajwadi Party MPs. Some of the

Priyanka Gandhi took the plunge into active politics in 2019 and was later appointed Congress general secretary

Earlier today, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra entered the Lok Sabha, marking the beginning of her journey as a Member of Parliament. Gandhi was seen wearing a Kerala Kasavu saree

India's legislative assemblies and Lok Sabha show trends of rising educational qualifications, and increased representation of businesspersons, but women's representation remains critically low

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday convened a meeting of the ruling NDA in the state to ensure better coordination among alliance partners in the run-up to assembly polls due next year. Leaders of JD(U), BJP and smaller partners Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Rashtriya Lok Morcha and Hindustani Awam Morcha thronged the chief minister's 1, Anne Marg residence for the meeting. "Our party leader has been asserting that the NDA will win 200 plus seats of the 243-strong House. For that perfect synergy among constituents is a must. Today's meeting has been called for that purpose," Ashok Choudhary, state minister and JD(U) national general secretary, said. State BJP president Dilip Jaiswal concurred, "A fine coordination saw us through the Lok Sabha polls this year. Carrying it forward will help us secure a two-thirds majority in the assembly elections." Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) state president Raju Tiwari said that "2020 is a thing of the past", when asked about the ..

Lok Sabha MP Rashid Engineer reached Srinagar on Thursday after getting an interim bail. In his first comments, he vowed to fight for justice while targeting the BJP over the abrogation of Article 370

The Union law ministry has invited proposals from top institutes, including IIMs, IITs, law universities and judicial academies, to carry out a "comprehensive evaluation" of special courts set up to hold expeditious trial of criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs to assess their functionality, efficacy and overall impact. The proposals have been invited under 'Scheme for Action Research and Studies on Judicial Reforms' of the Department of Justice which functions under the law ministry. Following the directions of the Supreme Court in 2017, the central government had facilitated setting up of 12 special courts in states for expeditious trial of criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs. Accordingly, 12 special courts -- two in Delhi and one each in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala -- were constituted. Ten such courts are currently functional in nine states. The special courts of Bihar and Kerala

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea against the election of jailed radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh as an MP from Punjab's Khadoor Sahib. The petitioner claimed before a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan that Article 84 of the Constitution deals with qualification for membership of Parliament and says that a person shall not be qualified to be chosen to fill a seat in Parliament unless he is a citizen of India. "In this case, respondent number four (Amritpal Singh) had said that he does not owe allegiance to the Constitution of India," the petitioner, who appeared in-person, said. "You file an election petition," the bench said. The petitioner said he was not a voter of Khadoor Sahib constituency but was "deeply hurt" by the statements given earlier by Singh. "It is a matter of evidence. There are procedures prescribed. There are provisions in the Representation of the People Act," the bench observed. "Thank you. Dismissed," the bench said while refusin

Senior Congress leader KC Venugopal and Amar Singh are part of the committee, which was previously headed by Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday asked members to be alert during House proceedings or else, he said, they will lose the opportunity to ask supplementary questions during the Question Hour. Birla said this after Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal was unable to respond to the speaker's call on time. During the Question Hour, a question posed by Badal related to Punjab was listed in the agenda for discussion. When Birla took Badal's name for a few times, she failed to respond in time as she was apparently busy talking to a fellow member. At this, the speaker decided to move on to the next question. Soon after, the Shiromani Akali Dal MP responded and urged the speaker to allow her to raise the issue. "I have called your name thrice. But you were busy in talking. You have to be alert when your question is listed. I want to tell all Honourable members that if you don't pay attention to the proceedings, you will not get the chance to raise issues," Birla said. The spea

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said in the Lok Sabha on Monday that there is a very serious problem in the country's examination system, prompting Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to issue a strong rebuttal and state that there was no evidence of paper leaks in the last seven years. As the opposition sought to corner the government over the issue of paper leaks, Speaker Om Birla also weighed in saying it was not right to raise questions about all exams and that members should discuss about developing a better examination system. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing the alleged irregularities in the medical entrance exam NEET. The agency has lodged six FIRs. The NEET-UG is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions. On the first day of the Budget session of Parliament, Opposition members raised the issue of exam paper leaks. Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said there w

The Delhi High Court on Monday pointed out several mistakes in AAP leader Somnath Bharti's petition challenging BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj's election in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls on grounds of alleged corrupt practices, and asked him to file a corrected one. Justice Manmeet PS Arora said at the outset that there were a lot of typographical errors which made it difficult to understand the averments in the petition. Even the reference to respondents in the petition did not correlate with the respondents mentioned in the memo of parties and synopsis, the counsel said. The court gave Bharti 10 days to file a corrected petition and listed the matter for further hearing on August 14. When Bharti's counsel urged the court to issue notice to the respondents on the petition, the judge said, "There are too many mistakes. Correct the petition first. I can't issue notice like this. I will simply adjourn it. Please file a corrected petition." Both Bharti and Swaraj contested from the New Delhi Lok S

Rulings given by the chair should not be criticised directly or indirectly in or outside the House and members should not raise slogans, including "Vande Mataram" and "Jai Hind", MPs have been reminded ahead of the Parliament session beginning Monday. The members have also been reminded that displaying "exhibits" on the floor of the House is "not in order". The Rajya Sabha Secretariat has come out with excerpts from the "Handbook for Members of Rajya Sabha", drawing the attention of the members to parliamentary customs and conventions and parliamentary etiquette. The excerpts were published in a Rajya Sabha bulletin issued on July 15. The session begins on July 22 and is slated to conclude on August 12. "The decorum and the seriousness of the proceedings of the House require that there should be no 'thanks', 'thank you', 'Jai Hind', 'Vande Mataram' or any other slogans raised in the House," the bulletin said. It noted that rulings are given by the chair according to the precedent

The mother of jailed radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, who took oath as a member of Parliament on Friday, said her son is not a Khalistani supporter and demanded that he be released immediately so that he can work on the issues on which he fought the elections. Meanwhile, celebrations broke out in Singh's native village Jallupur Khera in Amritsar and the Khadoor Sahib parliamentary constituency where people distributed sweets after he was administered oath. Singh and Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid, who were granted parole to take oath as members of the Lok Sabha, were sworn in as MPs amid heavy security in and around the Parliament complex. They took oath in the chamber of the Lok Sabha speaker after completing formalities. They were brought to the Parliament complex by security personnel this morning. Singh is lodged in a prison in Assam's Dibrugarh district for offences under the National Security Act. He was flown from Assam to Delhi on a four-day custody parole, for ..

Congress postponed its programme to felicitate the newly-elected Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh that was scheduled for Friday. UP Congress chief Ajay Rai told PTI that the programme has been postponed but did not give any reason for the postponement. Party sources, however, said that they did not want the programme to be held in Lucknow on the day senior party leader Rahul Gandhi visited Aligarh and Hathras to meet the family members of the stampede that killed 121 people. The Congress, which had contested the recently-concluded Lok Sabha election with the Samajwadi Party, has won six seats from UP, which sends 80 MPs to the Lower House -- the highest for any state. Rai said that a fresh date for the programme will be decided soon. All party candidates who had contested the elections will be called for the programme, he said. Rahul Gandhi, who won the Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli seat, had earlier this morning visited the families of the stampede in Aligarh and ...

An eight-member team of the Punjab Police would escort jailed 'Waris Punjab De' activist Amritpal Singh to New Delhi for his swearing-in as an MP, an official said. Singh, who has won the Lok Sabha polls from the Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab, has been granted four-day parole for the swearing-in. The police team, led by a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP)-rank official, arrived here on Thursday afternoon and is scheduled to escort Singh, lodged in Dibrugarh Central Jail, to New Delhi in a special flight amid tight security for the swearing-in on Friday. Singh's lawyer Rajdev Singh Khalsa said he would be taken to Delhi aboard a "military aircraft" for the swearing-in. Singh's parole orders are stringent, prohibiting him or his relatives from making any public statements during his visit to New Delhi. Moreover, any form of media coverage, including videography or circulation of statements, is strictly prohibited. In addition, Singh has been instructed not to engage in a