Rajya Sabha adjourned

New Delhi, Dec 5: The Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day Wednesday as the Samajwadi Party (SP) created a ruckus over a bill for providing quota to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and the Scheduled Tribes (ST) in promotions in government jobs.

The upper house was earlier adjourned till 12 noon when the Bahujan Samaj Party (BJP) demanded a memorial for Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar in Mumbai. When the house met, BSP chief Mayawati asked the government to explain by when it would complete construction of the memorial.

To this, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla said the government was taking action and promised to give a statement on the issue by Thursday.

BSP members were pacified by the minister’s statement but it was then the turn of the SP to disrupt the house. Samajwadi Party members gathered near the chairman’s podium and started raising slogans against reservation in promotion.

An irritated Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, who was to raise the issue of derecognition of the Indian Olympic Association, demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh be called to the house to give an explanation.

"Every day members from the ruling party and its supporting party are disrupting the house. The leader of the house should come and explain if they want the house to run or not," Jaitley said. The SP and the BSP prop the ruling UPA from outside.

Amid the din, Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien adjourned the upper house for the day.