Opposition protests over SIR, disrupts Lok Sabha work

The INDIA bloc floor leaders' meeting on Tuesday decided to broad-base the issues to be taken up in Parliament this week rather than sticking to the demand for an "immediate discussion" on the Pahalgam-Operation Sindoor issues which, they think, the government is disinclined to hold before PM Modi returns from his foreign tours next week. Therefore, the meeting chose to focus on poll-bound Bihar's SIR issue on Tuesday, which RJD particularly wanted to raise in the Houses. This led to Opposition protests and washout of the entire morning session in the Lok Sabha with two forced adjournments after 11 am and 12 noon even as Opposition MPs staged a protest at the main entrance of Parliament House by denouncing the SIR.

At the Opposition bloc's floor leaders' meeting, Rahul Gandhi is learnt to have promised them to soon give a presentation on how the electoral process was "manipulated" in Maharashtra and how the same can happen in Bihar through SIR.

After the meeting, Congress leader KC Venugopal spelt out the issues the Opposition bloc wanted to raise in the Houses with a demand that the PM be present to respond to each of the issues.


At the Opposition protest site against SIR, RJD MP Manoj Jha said: "If, in a democracy, the voter is not safe, then democracy is not safe."