The Opposition on Friday stalled the Lok Sabha for the third straight day over the demand to sack junior home minister Ajay Mishra Teni in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri carnage.

A brief flutter was created by Teni’s absence from a breakfast meeting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi held with 36 party MPs from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. But BJP sources clarified that the minister was likely to be part of a later meeting between Modi and the remaining 26 party MPs from the state.

On Friday morning, Opposition members swarmed the Well of the House, waved placards and chanted “We want justice”, alleging Teni’s involvement in the massacre.

Teni’s son Ashish has been arrested with 12 others after a Thar jeep belonging to the minister allegedly mowed down four farmers and a journalist in his constituency of Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, on October 3. A special investigation team has alleged a “pre-planned” atrocity.

The issue has brought the Congress, Left, DMK and Trinamul on the same page, with members of these parties protesting together inside the House and waving placards emblazoned with “Modi ji, sack Teni”.

Congress member Rahul Gandhi led the charge inside the Lok Sabha on Thursday, making an intervention during Question Hour to demand Teni’s removal.

On Friday, the protests began the moment the Lok Sabha assembled for Question Hour at 11am. Speaker Om Birla tried to conduct proceedings for around half an hour in the din before giving in and adjourning the House till 2pm. His repeated requests to the protesters to return to their seats and allow Question Hour to proceed were ignored.

The government and the BJP have so far given no indication that sacking Teni is even being considered.

Party insiders suggested that sacking Teni might anger the Brahmin voters in Uttar Pradesh. Brahmins are already believed to be unhappy with chief minister Yogi Adityanath, whom they accuse of a Kshatriya bias.

The Centre has refused to discuss the Lakhimpur Kheri case in Parliament even after the SIT’s damning findings, arguing that the House cannot debate a sub-judice matter.

Privately, BJP sources have been suggesting that a father cannot be punished for a son’s alleged misdeeds. Teni had, however, publicly threatened the protesting farmers a few days before the massacre.

On Friday morning, Teni’s absence from Modi’s breakfast meeting led to talk that the Prime Minister was unhappy with the minister and that some action might be taken against him.

But BJP insiders soon clarified that the Covid protocol had prevented all the party MPs from Uttar Pradesh being invited the same day, and that more such breakfast meetings would be held.

At the meeting, Modi was learnt to have urged the MPs to remain grounded and in constant touch with the voters.

In the Lok Sabha, answering a question on nutrition amid the ruckus, women and child development minister Smriti Irani chided the protesting members for blocking the “essential national deliberation”.

“I must appeal to every member who is in the Well of the House and (is) trying to dissuade a conversation on a national issue like nutrition to take part in it,” she said.

Despite the Opposition protests in the Lok Sabha, the government managed to introduce two bills and pass the amended surrogacy bill. All this business was carried out after the House reassembled at 2pm.

The winter session of Parliament is scheduled to conclude on December 23, with the government hoping to weather the Opposition attack on Teni till then.

On Friday, the ruling dispensation seized on sexist comments by a Karnataka Congress MLA to launch a counter-attack on the main Opposition party, which has been accusing the government of misogyny over the past few days.

Irani, speaking to reporters on Parliament premises, dared the Congress to sack K.R. Ramesh Kumar for his comments in the Karnataka Assembly.

“The Congress leadership in Uttar Pradesh, which always says that she is a girl and she can fight, sack the leader (MLA) if you have the courage,” Irani said.

She seemed to be alluding to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, who has been championing women’s empowerment in the run-up to the Assembly polls.

The Congress has been charging the government with misogyny over a comprehension passage in the CBSE Class X English paper and over its failure to mention Indira Gandhi at a commemoration of India’s victory in the 1971 war.