Parliament winter session begins on stormy note

NEW DELHI - The winter session of parliament began here Tuesday on a stormy note with the opposition targeting the government over alleged corruption in the Commonwealth Games and Mumbai’s housing society scam.

As soon as the session began, members from the Left and some regional parties in the Lok Sabha, including Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, first refused to let the question hour proceed. They were demanding a discussion on graft issues.

The protesting MPs also raised the issue of Army Chief V.K. Singh’s remarks that the Mumbai housing scam had shamed the armed forces of India. The scam allegedly involves politicians and a number of serving and retired officers of the defence services.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has indicated that corruption will be the key issue for it during the session but its MPs were not seen raising the demand.

Speaker Meira Kumar pleaded with members that any issue could be raised during the zero hour while Parliamentary Affairs Minister P.K. Bansal said a notice needed to be given before initiating a discussion.

The protesting members were pacified and took their seats after the speaker assured that Mulayam Singh could speak on the issue during zero hour later.

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Basudeb Acharia raised corruption allegations related to 2G spectrum allocation. Acharia also demanded a joint parliamentary probe into the Games imbroglio.

The 24-sitting long winter session will conclude Dec 13.