New Delhi, August 9:

Opposition fury over the government’s refusal to act against a union minister and other Congress leaders named for involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots today forced both houses of parliament to adjourn for the day. The political uproar over the GT Nanavati Commission report on the 1984 carnage and the government’s Action Taken Report (ATR) tabled in parliament yesterday continued as a determined opposition demanded punitive action. Former

prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said Congress leaders like Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Jagdish Tytler and Outer Delhi MP Sajjan Kumar named in the report should quit their post. “They should resign on their own volition, or the government should remove them,” Vajpayee told reporters.

Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition party, has decided to block parliament to demand Tytler’s removal. “We have decided to block both houses and ask for the resignations of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and union minister Jagdish Tytler,” said BJP spokesperson and MP Sushma Swaraj after a morning meeting of party MPs presided over by leader of opposition LK Advani. “We will not let the (ruling) Congress get away with murder.” According to Swaraj, Advani remarked in the meeting that the 1984 killings following

then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards, could not be described as riots, but genocide or massacre. True to their word, the BJP-led opposition National Democratic Alliance was up and shouting soon after the two houses assembled for the day’s business. The opposition was on its feet shouting demands for the resignation of Manmohan Singh and Tytler. An unrelenting din continued for a few more minutes until Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee adjourned the house for the day. Amid similar scenes, the Rajya Sabha was also adjourned for an hour and later, for the day.