Thanks to Lagadapati, pepper spray makes Parliament debut

New Delhi: An Andhra Pradesh parliamentarian, who has been expelled from the Congress, Thursday used pepper spray inside the Lok Sabha when the Telangana bill was tabled.

High drama took place when union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde rose to table the Telangana bill at noon.

Lagadapati Rajagopal, an MP from Vijaywada, released the pepper spray towards fellow members.

The strong, pungent odour triggered coughing among the parliamentarians who rushed out of the house.

Doctors were called and three MPs were taken to hospital.

TDP member M. Venugopala broke the speaker's mic.

Amidst the chaos, the house was adjourned till 2 p.m. and the house was vacated.

Rajagopal is among the six MPs from Seemandhra who were expelled from the Congress Tuesday.

The expelled MPs had said their goal is to stall tabling of the Telangana bill in parliament.

Congress expelled Sabbam Hari, G.V. Harsha Kumar, V. Arun Kumar, Lagadapati Rajagopal, R. Sambasiva Rao and A. Sai Pratap from the party for giving no-confidence motion notice against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in parliament over the Telangana issue.