The caste census again threatened to derail the Lok Sabha proceedings on Thursday when the Question Hour had to be adjourned, but Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee defused anger of leaders of pro-OBC parties by quickly briefing them not to go by media reports of the caste count at the biometric phase of enumeration.

Mukherjee, who heads the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the matter, held talks with the agitated leaders immediately after the adjournment till noon and later told the house on reassembly that the mechanism of the caste count was yet to be decided while all that the GoM decided on Wednesday was to canvass castes in the census.

"How and when this should be done is under consideration. The decision on the mechanism will have to be taken formally. The decision will be taken shortly by the cabinet. When the cabinet meets and takes a decision, we will inform you," Mukherjee said to the satisfaction of the parties that were agitated earlier.

Earlier, speaker Meira Kumar had to adjourn the house after ten minutes of uproar by the parties over what Janata Dal (U) chief Sharad Yadav summed up as suspicion of the government scuttling the caste census by clubbing it with the biometric exercise that may not be completed even in 100 years.

The Question Hour just could not take off as Sharad Yadav, along with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Dara Singh Chauhan and BJP's deputy leader Gopinath Munde, created ruckus on what they claimed was fooling of the people by clubbing the caste census with the biometric recording of people's fingerprints and iris scan.

"This biometric exercise will not be completed in 100 years," Sharad Yadav asserted, pointing out that issue of the voter's identity cards has not been implemented completely even after 15 years.

The pandemonium also saw the Trinamul Congress members led by Sudip Bandopadhyay trying to raise the issue of an alleged attempt on the life of their party chief and railway minister Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal two days ago.

Bandopadhyay got the opportunity later to make a claim that life of Mamata is in danger as the party fears she may be eliminated bodily from the way a lorry rammed into her convoy resulting in injuries to her. He wanted a probe to find out how the lorry was allowed to crash into the convoy of Mamata enjoying the "Z plus" security. The lorry hit a car carrying security personnel and the car in return hit the minister's car, he said.

When CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharia tried to defend the West Bengal government led by his party as not trying to eliminate Mamata as alleged, Trinamul's Kalyan Banerjee, a senior lawyer, lost cool, asserting that "these are the persons who are trying to kill her."

After a few minutes of wordy duel between the Left and Trinamul members, the House could get back to business and it was at this moment that Lalu Prasad jumped to his feet to send a message to Mamata Banerjee on behalf of the House to get well and return to the House soon.