What happened yesterday has pained me: R S Chairman Naidu

Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday expressed "pain" over Thursday's incident in the upper house during voting process on Right to Information (Amendment) Bill that witnessed chaos and pandemonium after the House rejected Opposition's demand to refer the Bill to a Select Committee.

"What happened yesterday has pained me. It has pained the people of the country also. There are children in the gallery too. I don't want to elaborate on that. We should see to it that such situations and such scenes are avoided in future," Naidu said as soon as Zero Hour concluded.

He clarified that any Bill originating from Lok Sabha is taken up in this House and if any member wants to move amendments then those amendments and Bills would be taken up together for discussion.

"That has been the practice in the House since long. They would be taken up first after discussion and then, there would be voting on amendments. If the amendments are carried out, to refer it to the Select Committee, then there is no meaning in having voted on the Bill. If the amendment is negatived, then there would be voting on the Bill also. This has been the tradition," he said.

On Thursday many of the opposition members had sought for disposing of the amendments moved by the members first and then take up the Bill for discussion.

As the voting process was going on in the House, some of the members from the treasury benches were seen instructing other members.

Soon after opposition members angrily rushed towards them. They were having some arguments with C M Ramesh, who recently quit TDP to join the BJP.

As the confrontation took a new turn with some of the opposition members objecting to Ramesh's act, Deputy Chairman Harivansh asked him to go back to his seat.

The Congress and other opposition members protested against Ramesh's action and staged a walkout.

"I have been making observations in the House from time to time. Not just during voting but even during normal times, members coming from one side, going to the minister, or somebody from that side going to the other side and trying to talk to others. These scenes are not good because live telecast is going on," he said urging the members to follow the decorum and maintain standards in the House.

The Chairman also said he does not want standing and voting which is going on in Lok Sabha these days.

"We have elders here. It won't look nice making members stand and count the votes and then if there is some problem asking them to stand up again," he said.

Soon after Chairman's observation, Congress' Digvijay Singh asked the chair to reprimand the member who was involved in Thursday's incident.

Responding to Singh, MoS Parliamentary Affairs V Muraleedharan said the video footage of the proceedings should be examined so that truth can come out.