Rajya Sabha proceedings were adjourned for an hour on Friday after treasury and opposition members caused an uproar in the House over the issue of reservation.

The ruckus began after Congress MP Neeraj Dangi said that in 1993, the Congress government under then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao made a provision for 27 per cent reservation for the socially and educationally backwards through an office memorandum that was later challenged in the Supreme Court.

Dangi's remarks came during a discussion on a private bill member's bill introduced by Samajwadi Party MP Javed Ali Khan.

Khan introduced the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2022, (amendment of article 16) to grant reservation to the backward classes in proportion to their population.

"The spirit of the Mandal Commission was to give reservation in the proportion of population because of the 50 per cent reservation cap imposed by the Supreme Court," Khan said.

He said those who oppose reservation give the logic that it will spoil merit and deserving people will not be able to reach higher positions. "It is a myth to deprive the backward classes of their rights," Khan said.

Tamil Nadu has 69 per cent reservation and their GDP growth is the second highest in the country after Karnataka, the Samajwadi party MP said.

The NDA government has not conducted any special drive to fill vacancies for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes in the last 10 years, he claimed.

Alleging that the tradition of the House has been to keep private member's bills out of voting, Khan said, "It is an important subject. Discuss it and pass it. If you don't pass it then vote it out but don't put pressure on me to take it back. I am not going to take it back." When Dangi began his speech on the issue, the treasury bench members started sloganeering. Amid the uproar, Dangi continued with his speech, demanding a caste-based census and removing the 50 per cent reservation limit.

Amid the bedlam, S Phangnon Konyak, who was in Chair, adjourned the House for an hour at 3 pm.

Earlier, CPI member Sandosh Kumar P introduced the National Artificial Intelligence Technology Regulatory Authority Bill, 2024, proposing the establishment of a regulatory authority to monitor and regulate the use of artificial intelligence and related technologies.

He also introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2024, and the National Commission for the Preservation of Endangered Languages Bill, 2024.

CPI(M) member John Brittas introduced the University Grants Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2024. His other private member's bill -- the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2024 (amendment of article 158) --seeking to make governors constitutionally bound by the advice of the Council of Ministers of states, was defeated in the Rajya Sabha.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.