Rajya Sabha was on Friday thrown out of gear during the question hour following charges of 'Talibanisation' of the country's education system, forcing adjournment of the House till 1430 hours.
As chairman Krishan Kant took up a starred question relating to the policy for writing text books, members from Left parties said there was a complaint that people in-charge of preparing syllabus were communalising knowledge.
Countering the allegation, minister of state for human resource development Rita Verma said the present government was only following the policies of the previous Congress and United Front ministries. But, hell broke loose when senior Congress member Arjun Singh snubbed BJP member T N Chaturvedi and charged the BJP-led government with "Talibanisation of education in India".
This sparked a vociferous protest from treasury benches leading to noisy scenes for nearly 15 minutes.
While ruling party members demanded that the expression be expunged, Congress and Left party members refused to budge saying the expression was not unparliamentary. Questioning under what rule the expression was unparliamentary, senior Congress member Pranab Mukherjee said, "you are a fascist, you are a Taliban. We will not withdraw a single word". The Congress members were supported by other Opposition members. Bureau Report