The Lok Sabha was briefly adjourned on Tuesday with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeking a reply from the government on the role of Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who is alleged to have helped his son get financial benefits in a telecom deal when he was the finance minister in 2006.
As soon as members assembled in the morning, some BJP frontbenchers rose to protest, demanding suspension of question hour to discuss the issue.
Some BJP MPs staged protests near Speaker Meira Kumar's podium and disrupted the crucial question hour.
The speaker first tried to restore peace in the house asking protesting MPs to go back to their seats. As the MPs intensified their protests, Meira Kumar adjourned the house till noon.
Opposition MPs cited Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy's allegations that Chidambaram had delayed permission for the sale of Aircel to Malaysia-based Maxis in 2006 when he was finance minister so that his son, Karthi, was financially benefited.
"The BJP is going to raise the matter very seriously in both the houses. The government is not coming with true facts pertaining to the deliberate delays in the Aircel-Mexis deal because of the interest of then finance minister. We want a reply from the government in parliament," said BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad.
He said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is being misused and the investigative agency wants to put it on the backburner.