New Delhi, March 19 (IANS) Ugly scenes prevailed in the Rajya Sabha Monday following a scuffle between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member S.S. Ahluwalia and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, forcing a brief adjournment of the house.
The trouble began as the house assembled at 2 p.m. after two adjournments forced by the BJP over last week's violence in West Bengal's Nandigram area that left at least 14 people dead.
As Chidambaram rose to reply on the discussion on the appropriation bill for fiscal 2007-08, Ahluwalia advanced menacingly toward the treasury benches waving his hands and attempted to snatch the papers from the finance minister.
While nothing was audible as to what Ahluwalia said, Congress members immediately formed a cordon in front of Chidambaram and pushed the BJP MP back.
Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan then adjourned the house for 15 minutes to enable tempers to cool.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was present throughout.
When the house reassembled, it approved the bill.
The Rajya Sabha also passed the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2007 and the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (Amendment) Bill. The Lok Sabha has already passed these bills.
This is the second time during the current budget session that ugly scenes have been witnessed in parliament.
Last week, MPs of the DMK and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) almost came to blows in the Lok Sabha over the National Maritime University being shifted from Kolkata to Chennai.