Lok Sabha speaker calls all-party meeting on disruptions

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has called an all-party meeting on Thursday to discuss recurrent disruptions in house proceedings.

"The meeting would be held in the (Thursday) afternoon in the parliament house complex," an official at the Lok Sabha secretariat said.

The speaker's decision to hold the meeting comes amid a showdown in the parliament between the opposition, chiefly led by the Congress, and the ruling BJP.

While the opposition is demanding the resignations of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and the chief ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh over the Lalit Modi and the Vyapam controversies, the BJP is sticking to its stand of a debate in the house.

Almost every day of the ongoing monsoon session so far has been disrupted over these issues.

Things came to a flash point on July 27 when Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury banged a placard on the speaker's table and was suspended for a day.

Mahajan has repeatedly warned MPs not to carry placards inside the house. But the protests have continued.