Exasperated by the unruly behaviour of members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee Wednesday said, "Zero Hour has become torture hour, I must say. One day, we have to think of abolishing this."
The speaker made this remark as several members simultaneouly sought to raise various issues without waiting for their names to be called.
Chatterjee gave vent to his feelings when several members from Kerala wanted to make their points against the railway ministry's proposal to bifurcate the Palakkad division and shift part of it to Salem.
The speaker allowed N N Krishnadas (Communist Party of India-Marxist) to raise the issue and said the names of other MPs who had given notice, including P C Thomas (Indian Federal Democratic Party) and P Karunakaran (CPI-M), would be associated.
But the MPs persisted that they also be allowed to make their points.
The speaker also kept advising the members to be brief so that he could allow all the MPs to raise the issues for which they had given proper notice.
Irked by repeated interruptions during Zero Hour Tuesday, the speaker had abruptly adjourned the House till 1400 hrs.
The adjournment had come a couple of minutes before 1300 hrs as Chatterjee's pleadings and threats that he would "go away" failed to restore order.
Even as the speaker had called the name of Yerran Naidu (Telugu Desam Party) to raise an issue pertaining to the farming community in Ananthapur district of Andhra Pradesh, several members tried to make their points.