Parliament begins the sitting for the day, the opposition creates pandemonium on some burning issue of the day and the houses are adjourned in no time – leaving question hour as casualty. Now the government wants to break this routine and at least salvage question hour by scheduling it later in the day rather than right at the start.

This routine was witnessed on Friday, the second day of the second half of the budget session. As some members were raising slogans and entering the well of the Lok Sabha, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal suggested that the age-old practice of the session starting with question hour needs a rethink.

Speaker Meira Kumar did not react immediately but she later told a news agency that she is mulling a change in the timing of question hour that is becoming a casualty every day. "I am very much worried about the continuous disruptions during question hour."

She said: "I have some ideas to rescue the question hour proceedings, may be by rescheduling their timing. She said she will discuss this with leaders of the political parties.”

Yet another outburst from Bansal came in the post-lunch session when the Opposition members continued to block proceedings with slogans to sack minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor for alleged misuse of office in the IPL Kochi franchise affair.

Wondering whether they want parliament to function at all, Bansal accused the opposition of holding the house to ransom and hijacking the proceedings every day.

"It is your right, it is your duty to raise the issues in the house. But the honourable minister (Tharoor) had prepared a statement. You should have allowed him to speak. He tabled the statement and you should read that," he told the agitated opposition members.

In an outburst he asked: "What are we doing to parliament? What are we doing to democracy? We have been elected by people to raise their issues. If they (opposition MPs) don't want to let the House function, they should be clear about that."