The Budget session started some 10 days ago, but parliamenthas not been able to conduct quesiton hout as the chair has been forced to adjourn the house after calling the first question due to continuous pandemonium on one or the other issue. As a result, 2,000 unstarred questions and 200 starred questions have remained unanswered.

Wednesday was no different except that Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar implemented a new rule, permitting Minister of State V Narayansamy to reply to a question asked to the prime minister on the geodetic survey of Qutub Minar despite questioner MP Nripendra Nath Roy (Forward Bloc) not putting the question. Rules stand amended, she said when a member objected how the minister can answer when the questioner is not there. She even allowed another MP to ask a supplementary despite the din before ultimately adjourning the house till noon. The house had to be adjourned again till 2 pm.

The Rajya Sabha witnessed similar scenes, but Chairman Hamid Ansari did not follow the new rule as he put the question no 81 and then moved to question no 82 when the first question was not asked -- instead of letting the minister reply to it as also to any supplementaries. The house was then adjourned till noon.

And, when the house reassembled at noon, the opposition blocked Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's reply to the price rise debate last Thursday, wanting the prime minister to first come to the house and explain the breach of parliament practice in announcing in "foreign land" (opposition leader Arun Jaitley tried to correct that it was a mid-air announcement) that the petrol and diesel price hike will not be rolled back.

Deputy Chairman K Rahman Khan argued for over 20 minutes that there was no breach as the PM did not announce it before the budget and wanted members to better raise the issue when they discuss the budget. He also stressed that Pawar is to reply to the food price hike and cannot be made to reply on the petrol/disele price increase.

He finally threatened that he would let Pawar table his reply if he was prevented from speaking. Getting the hint, Pawar promptly tabled the reply but the deputy chairman ignored it and adjourned the house till 2 pm.

Order was, however, restored in both the houses post-lunch session as Prof. P J Kurien took the chair and allowed Pawar to reply to the debate while the Lok Sabha started discussion on motion of thanks on the president's address, with Girija Vyas, one of chairpersons, in the chair. Congress member Inderjit Singh Rao piloted the motion and initiated the discussion, regretting that he was prevented to do so past one week though the subject was on the agenda since Tuesday last week.

In the Lok Sabha, SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad walked to Congress president Sonia Gandhi before the sitting started to urge her to get the petrol, diesel price hike reversed. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee just watched them speak and Sonia Gandhi not responding.

Speaker Meira Kumar's repeated pleas that the issue the agitated opposition members wanted to raise could be done during "zero hour" and also during the budget discussion, but the response was more deafening slogans forcing her to adjourn the house. She even tried to plead with the members that they had thoroughly and for whole of the day on Thursday discussed the price rise and hence should not agitate on the same issue again.

There is no question hour on the day the president addresses the joint session and on the day the budget is presented in the Lok Sabha. The question hour could not be taken up as pandemonium forced adjournment on Tuesday and Wednesday last week while the chair in both the houses suspended the question hour on Thursday to placate the opposition for discussion on the food price rise. A sitting on Tuesday was cancelled as members said it would be difficult to be back in Delhi immediately after the Holi festival.