LS adjourned till 1300 hrs on Railway language policy issue

New Delhi, May 17 (UNI) The Lok Sabha was adjourned till 1300 Hrs today when a member alleged that the Railways were biased against the use of regional languages, other than Tamil, leading to uproarious scenes.

The trouble began during Zero Hour when Mr B K Tripathi (BJD) read out from an official circular to prove his point that the Railways were not following the three language formula, except in Tamil Nadu. The official ciruclar was addressed to the General Managers of the Railways.

Mr Tripathi said for defining the destinations, the Railways were using English and Hindi, while for destinations in the southern states, Tamil was also to be used.

This raised protests from various sections of the House, provoking Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to repeatedly make pleas for restoring calm.

"You are not interested in running of the House. I will adjourn the House," Mr Chatterjee warned.

Earlier, when Akali leaders raised the issue of violence in Punjab, Mr Chaterjee had raised a similar note of warning.

As normalcy was not getting restored, Mr Chatterjee at 1225 hours adjourned the house till 1300 hours.

UNI