Lok Sabha adjourned amid din, Rahul Gandhi does mock interview outside

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha failed to transact any business on Monday as the speaker adjourned the House four times - after 11 am, 12 noon, 2 pm and finally after 3 pm for the day - citing disorder due to Congress protests on the "Adani issue" and the BJP build-up to counter it with the "Soros issue", even as a few members also tried to raise the "farmers' issue".

Outside Parliament, Congress MPs continued to stage a protest on the Adani issue, with the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi playing "reporter", doing a mock interview of two party MPs, who had worn masks resembling Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani.

While Gandhi was seen showing phone recording of his "interview" to the equally enthusiastic 'interviewees' and some colleagues, there were also murmurs of disapproval from sections of opposition MPs, who felt that such "mock acts" were not befitting of the leader of the opposition and an aspiring prime ministerial candidate. Some of them recalled that during a recent session, All India Trinamool Congress member Kalyan Banerjee was mimicking Rajya Sabha chairman with Gandhi video-graphing him.


While MPs belonging to some allies joined the Congress protest outside Parliament, which the AITC and SP skipped, inside the House, the Congress was left to protest alone in the well as MPs of allies DMK, SP, TMC, RJD, SS-UBT and the Left chose not to enter the well.

When the House assembled at 2 pm, railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw began his reply on the Railways (Amendment) Bill. However, he could not speak due to disruptions. The House was adjourned till 3 pm. Even then the opposition kept protesting. At 3 pm, Ray adjourned it for the day.

Later Congress MP KC Venugopal blamed the government for adjourning the House without business in the first half. "The House is adjourning only because of the government... They don't want to run the House at all. We raised the issue and they adjourned the House within 10 seconds because the government doesn't want to hear the name of Adani in Parliament," he told reporters.