Lok Sabha passes Central University Bill amid National Herald din

The Lok Sabha was forced to abruptly adjourn thrice on Wednesday amid protests by members of Congress and its allies over the Enforcement Directorate conducting raids in various offices of Congress-owned National Herald newspaper a day earlier.
While the Question Hour and the Zero Hour were drowned in the protests, the government managed to conduct a debate amid the din, pass the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill and introduce The Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2022.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi too entered the well of the House and joined her sloganeering colleagues, after DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran, upon seeing the government bringing a bill, asked more Congress MPs including Shashi Tharoor and Karti Chidambaram to join the protesters in the well. Then Gandhi joined the protesting MLAs and urged other party colleagues to follow suit.

The stage for the protest was set when speaker Om Birla rejected the notices by various Congress MPs, including Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Kodikunnil Suresh and Manickam Tagore, for adjournment motion on the ED raids at National Herald offices. Earlier, senior Congress MPs, including Gandhi, decided that the ED action on the office of a newspaper that played a historic role in the freedom movement should be raised in the House. Some MPs met the speaker in his chamber ahead of the sitting and urged him to allow them to raise the matter.

"The role the National Herald, founded by Jawaharlal Nehru, played during the freedom struggle is historic and the ED raid in its offices is most condemnable. The ED raid at National Herald offices was also part of this government's blatant attempts to target the memory of Nehru and other freedom fighters," Suresh Kodikunnil, the Congress chief whip, said outside the House.

Amid the din, the Lok Sabha passed The Central University (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to create the Gati Shakti Vishwavidyalaya. Piloting the bill, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the plan is to unify different departments to create a new infrastructure.