New Delhi, March 19: When lungpower doesn’t work, snatch.

Parliament’s snatch brigade was at it again today, when a BJP member almost did what some Left MPs had done a few days ago — snatch papers from a minister.

S.S. Ahluwalia’s muscle flexing to stop finance minister P. Chidambaram from replying to a discussion on the budget in the Rajya Sabha brought BJP and Congress members virtually to blows. The fracas led to the adjournment of the House, first for 10 minutes and then for the rest of the day.

The trouble started when Chidambaram began replying to the discussion, ignoring Opposition slogans on the Nandigram deaths. Realising that lungpower wasn’t working, Ahluwalia rushed towards Chidambaram and tried to snatch the sheaf of papers from his hand.

Congress MPs rushed to form a cordon in front of the minister and pulled away the BJP member.

Last week, Left MPs from Bengal had snatched a sheaf of papers from T.R. Baalu as the shipping minister stood up to introduce a bill in the Lok Sabha and would have even landed blows had Parliament’s marshals not come in between.

When the Rajya Sabha assembled this morning, BJP and Trinamul members did not allow the House to take up scheduled business. When the upper House met after lunch, deputy chairman K. Rahman Khan, who was in the chair, called the finance minister to reply to the budget discussion as BJP and other Opposition members trooped to the well shouting slogans against the Bengal government.

Chidambaram, who called the BJP’s action a “travesty of democracy”, later completed his reply hurriedly in the din before the chair called it a day.

The Lok Sabha, too, witnessed disruptions. When the House convened, the BJP’s Kharabela Swain demanded a discussion on Nandigram claiming that he had already given a notice.

The discussion was not allowed and BJP MPs started raising slogans. Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal adjourned the House for an hour.

When proceedings resumed, all the BJP MPs except V.K. Malhotra and L.K. Advani trooped to the well, demanding that the “anti-farmer government should quit”.

Atwal adjourned the House for the day as soon as the legislative business was over.