On Thursday, several members asked Dhankhar whether he condoned the judge’s remarks but received no answers. Congress’s Randeep Surjewala and Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh tried to discuss the notices amid the commotion, but Dhankhar stopped them.

Vice President Dhankhar said Article 121 places restrictions on discussion on the conduct of judges in the discharge of their duties, except on a motion for removal.

Later, after the adjournment of the House, the Opposition leaders criticised the chair for not giving them a chance to discuss the judge’s impeachment.

Communist Party of India’s Rajya Sabha MP Santhosh Kumar said the Opposition gave a notice for the impeachment of the Rajya Sabha chairman as “we had no other options left”. He added that Dhankhar, day after day, proved himself unbecoming of the chair by helping the ruling front and denying the opposition parties their genuine rights.

“The government is enforcing censorship in the House by blocking the Opposition leader… Issues such as unemployment, inflation, and Manipur should be raised. But it (BJP) does not want to raise these issues…The Leader of Opposition was not granted even a minute to speak,” Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev said.

It is not clear yet when the Opposition will move the impeachment notice against the judge in substantive motions, as Dhankhar prescribed.

Under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, once at least 50 signatures are on board, the notice is fit for admission by the Rajya Sabha chairman. So far, Vivek Tankha and Renuka Chowdhury from the Congress, Manoj Jha from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and John Brittas from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are already on board as signatories.

In the Lok Sabha, National Conference MP Ruhullah Mehdi has been overseeing parallel efforts to move an impeachment motion against the Allahabad HC judge.

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Protests over business-politics nexuses

Once Dhankhar rejected the notices for discussions on the judge’s impeachment, the treasury bench shifted its focus on alleged links between Hungarian-American businessman George Soros and the Nehru-Gandhi family.

After Dhankhar allowed BJP President and Leader of House J.P. Nadda to speak on the issue, Nadda criticised Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge for holding a press conference to criticise the constitutional authority of the Rajya Sabha chairman, saying it is “not only condemnable but has set the wrong precedent”.

“They (opposition parties) made allegations that they were not given proper time in the House. But the fact is that the chairman has called Kharge several times in his chambers to discuss the issue — he wrote letters to Kharge — but Kharge did not attend, even the business advisory committee meeting. Shows how much trust you have in the democratic process,” Nadda said. “The chair has been called ‘cheerleader’ by the Congress party official X handle… People of this country will never forgive the Congress party for denigrating the constitutional position.”

Nadda slammed the no-confidence motion as a diversionary tactic to avoid the Soros issue. “What is the relationship between Sonia Gandhi and George Soros? The country wants to know. Soros spent a million dollars to destabilise India, and the Congress party became his tool. The House should bring a condemnation motion for this,” he said.

Nadda spoke at length, but as soon as Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was allowed to respond to the charges, chaos erupted in the House, and Kharge could barely be heard saying The BJP leaders “want to deviate from the issue”. Dhankhar then intervened — “You did not come into the BAC meeting” — and subsequently adjourned the House for the first half of the day.

On Wednesday, listing reasons to bring the no-confidence motion against Dhankhar at a press conference, Kharge alleged, “Dhankhar is working as a government spokesperson and acting like a school headmaster, often sermonising experienced opposition leaders and preventing them from speaking in the House.”

Protests over alleged business-politics nexuses continue two weeks into the winter session of the Parliament.

Several opposition MPs on Thursday staged a protest on the Adani issue inside the Parliament complex, carrying placards of Hindi letters that jointly read ‘desh bikne nahin denge (we will not allow the country to be sold)’ and raising slogans to reiterate their demands for a joint parliamentary probe into the Adani issue. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, MPs from the Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and the Left parties, among others, participated in the protests on the Makar Dwar steps and in front of the Samvidhan Sadan.

Meanwhile, Union minister Giriraj Singh carried a placard with pictures of George Soros and Sonia Gandhi, reading ‘yeh rishta kya kehlata hain’.