Parliament highlights: Govt harming HAL to benefit Anil Ambani, says Rahul

BJP and Congress issued three-line whips for party parliamentarians to be present in Lok Sabha today. Here are LIVE updates from the Parliament session

2:22 PM

Cabinet approves 10% reservation to economically backward upper castes: Sources

2:01 PM

Congress President Rahul Gandhi: Defence Minister had earlier said that Rs 1 trillion were given to HAL, we challenged that ,and today she said that Rs 26,570.80 crore were given to HAL, Nirmala Sitharaman Ji lied in the Parliament.

1:41 PM

Rahul Gandhi: Today Nirmala Sitharaman lied in parliament. I'm again requesting the Defence minister and PM Modi to answer "did Air Force and Defence ministry senior officers object to your interference in Rafael deal?" Please answer in a "Yes or No."

1:39 PM

Pritam Gopinath Munde of BJP from Beed speaks about the deteriorating conditions of sugar factor says, "the subsidies promised by the government to the sugarcane farmers are yet to processed."

1:38 PM

Lok Sabha

BJP's Nihsikant Dubey speaks about the violence in Kerala, says "CPI-M has been causing violence against us since many years. They are doing violent politics. I request the CM of the State should be removed immediately and invoke President rule."

1:37 PM

Lok Sabha

Badaruddoza Khan of CPI-M raises the issue of BSP jawans in Murshidabad attacking common people without any authority amidst uproar by other members. Another member requests revision of royalty in coal.  

 

"CBI ka ghatbandan bandh karo" members can be heard chanting.

1:36 PM

 Members of Parliament continue to protest.

1:36 PM

Rama Devi of BJP takes up the issue of students walking miles to attend college in Bihar.

1:36 PM

Mallikarjun Kharge says the Defence Minister in her statement corrected facts in her own statement. "We are demanding JPC, because the Rafale deal is a problem because of all this, says Kharge."

1:34 PM

Thambidurai, AIADMK member and Deputy Speaker of the House, raises the issue of water scarcity in Tamil Nadu and requests to cancel the suspension of the members, says, "Please consider this, request you to bring back TDP and AIADMK members."

12:46 PM

The entire issue had started when Sitharaman had discussed in detail about the HAL issue in Parliament while debating the Rafale issue in Lok Sabha for over two hours.

12:44 PM

Earlier on Sunday, Rahul had tweeted saying, "When you tell one lie, you need to keep spinning out more lies, to cover up the first one. In her eagerness to defend the PM's Rafale lie, the RM (Raksha Mantri) lied to Parliament. Tomorrow, RM must place before Parliament documents showing 1 Lakh crore of Govt orders to HAL. Or resign."

12:42 PM

12:40 PM

Responding to the allegations, Sitharaman's office tweeted details of the orders given to the HAL and the tenders in the pipeline for the only aerospace PSU in the country.

 

"It is a shame that the President of @INCindia is spreading lies and misleading the country. HAL has signed contracts worth Rs 26,570 crore (between 2014-2018) (tenure of the NDA government) and contracts worth Rs 73,000 crore are in the pipeline. Will @rahulgandhi apologise to the country from the floor of the house and resign," the Defence Minister's office tweeted.

12:40 PM

On Sunday, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman hit out at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his claims that the public sector entity HAL was not being given contracts by the government.

Minster Sitharaman said: "It is a shame that Gandhi is misleading the public as contracts worth Rs 26,570 crore have been signed with the PSU by armed forces and Rs 73,000 crore worth orders were in the pipeline for it."