Mr Rijiju said the next session of the Parliament is expected to begin in the last week of July
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday slammed the opposition Congress-led INDIA bloc for intentionally disrupting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speeches in both Houses of Parliament.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Mr Rijiju said the Congress and other opposition parties had been allocated adequate time to raise all issues during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address and yet they chose to disrupt the prime minister's reply in both houses of Parliament.
Mr Rijiju's remarks came as the opposition trooped to the well and raised slogans throughout the prime minister's over two-hour reply to the debate in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Similar scenes were witnessed in the Rajya Sabha, where the opposition members walked out of the House after brief protests and sloganeering.
"Some interruptions during the speech are okay but disrupting the entire two-hour speech of the prime minister by raising slogans is definitely not done. This has never happened," Mr Rijiju said.
The minister said the government will never allow the Congress strategy to stall Parliament proceedings to succeed. "We will continue to run the House as per the rules," he said.
Mr Rijiju said the next session of the Parliament, expected to begin in the last week of July, will be a fresh session when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the general budget.
"We will have to call a fresh session. The current session will be prorogued and the Cabinet will soon decide on the dates for the new session," the minister said.
Mr Rijiju said the Lok Sabha had seven sittings and registered productivity of 103 per cent despite a washout on Friday. The Rajya Sabha had five sittings and registered productivity of more than 100 per cent.
He said there was no problem between the government and the opposition at the personal level and he would continue to reach out to them for floor coordination At the same time, Mr Rijiju said the opposition should accept the mandate of the people who have re-elected Prime Minister Modi for a third consecutive term in office.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)