Question Hour 'almost dead', laments Speaker

Exasperated by frequent disruptions during Question Hour, the Lok Sabha Speaker, Ms Meira Kumar, today lamented that it was becoming "almost dead''.

A visibly disappointed Ms Kumar made the observation when the Samajwadi Party members created uproar for the third consecutive day during the Question Hour.

She disapproved of the action of SP members to storm the Well despite one of their colleagues being allowed to raise an issue concerning the arrest of Mr Akhilesh Yadav, MP from Kannauj, and chief of the party's Uttar Pradesh unit.

"You cannot disrupt the Question Hour in this fashion. You cannot destroy the sanctity of the Question Hour. Just go back to your seats,'' an angry Speaker told some SP members, who had been storming the Well during the Question Hour since Monday.

"The Question Hour is almost dead, there is need to rejuvenate it,'' she said.

Earlier, Mr Shailendra Kumar (SP) referred to the arrest of Mr Akhilesh Yadav at the Lucknow airport by the UP police today when he was on his way to lead an agitation against the Mayawati Government.

The SP members stormed the Well after voicing their concerns as the Speaker continued with the Question Hour amid slogan shouting.

As this went on for a while, the Minister of State in the PMO, Mr V. Narayanasamy, Mr Sanjay Nirupam (Cong) and Mr Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (RJD) went to the SP members and requested them to go back to their seats.

Some angry words from the Speaker later saw the SP members resuming their seats. The Speaker said all the members had the protection of the Chair and if the member still had concerns, the same may be raised with her later.

The observation by the Speaker came a day after the Rajya Sabha Chairman, Mr Hamid Ansari, shifted the timing of the Question Hour from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in view of frequent disruptions the moment the Upper House met for the day.