123 New Delhi: Opposition parties, including Trinamool and Congress, walked out of Rajya Sabha on Monday after their demands for discussion on the Election Commission's alleged lapses leading to issue of duplicate voter ID cards, and the poll panel's role in delimitation, were disallowed.
Deputy chairman Harivansh said the demands could not be accepted since they were not in conformity with the rulings of the chair on such notices. Opposition MPs, including LoP Mallikarjun Kharge, raised slogans and staged a walkout after Harivansh asserted that their notices were not accepted and nothing they said would go on record. As many as 10 MPs — including TMC's Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Mausam B Noor, Sushmita Dev and Congress's Pramod Tiwari — had served notices under rule 267.
Before Monday's session, TMC Rajya Sabha leader Derek O'Brien posted on X, saying the EPIC issue was "at the core of democracy". He tagged his March 12 post in wh-ich he had sought an "open discussion next week (under rule 176)" on the matter. "Parliament gets back to work after a four-day break. A constructive Opposition wants to debate an issue that is at the core of democracy. Is the govt ready?" O'Brien posted.
Later in the day, the party's deputy leader in RS, Sagarika Ghose, told reporters, "All opposition parties have been carrying out a sustained campaign over the issue of duplicate EPICs. Duplicate EPICs lead to manipulation of electoral rules. Without adherence to these rules, there can be no electoral democracy, no free and fair poll. We have been carrying out a sustained campaign over the last two weeks... Everyone is agitated about how there can be duplicate EPICs. This is shocking and alarming."