Union minister Smriti Irani on Friday led an attack in the Lok Sabha on Rahul Gandhi for his “Rape in India” comment at an election rally in Jharkhand, as BJP lawmakers demanded an apology from the Congress leader.

“This is the first time in history that a leader is giving a clarion call that Indian women should be raped. Is this Rahul Gandhi’s message to the people of the country? He should be punished,” Smriti Irani said in the Lok Sabha.

In the Rajya Sabha, members shouted slogans of ‘Rahul Gandhi maafi maango’ against his remark.

“You cannot take the name of a person who is not a member of this House. Nobody has the business to disturb the House,” Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said.

Both the Houses were adjourned till 12pm after the uproar over Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Rape in India’ remark.

Rahul Gandhi had launched a scathing attack on Narendra Modi over the rising crimes against women across the country as he raised the rape of a girl by Kuldeep Sengar, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s former legislator in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao.

“Narendra Modi had said ‘Make in India’ but nowadays wherever you look, it is ‘Rape in India’. In Uttar Pradesh, a BJP MLA raped a woman, then she met with an accident but Narendra Modi did not utter a word,” Gandhi had said while speaking at a public rally in Godda on Thursday.

“Narendra Modi says ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’. But he never said from whom should the daughters be saved? They should be saved from the BJP’s MLA,” he had said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Britain’s PM Boris Johnson who is set to return to power with a thumping majority after the Conservative Party wrested a large number of seats from Labour on Friday, in UK election.

“Many congratulations to PM @BorisJohnson for his return with a thumping majority. I wish him the best and look forward to working together for closer India-UK ties,” PM Modi said on Twitter.

Johnson’s Conservative Party has won a solid majority of seats in Britain’s Parliament – a decisive outcome to a Brexit-dominated election that should allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take the UK out of the European Union next month.

The Conservative Party had used PM Modi’s video ahead of the elections to woo the Indian voters.

‘Boris ko hamein jitana hai’, says the latest video, set to a song with lyrics in Hindi and images of PM Modi and the Indian high commissioner, Ruchi Ghanashyam, among others. The Conservative party has been ideologically and otherwise closer to the BJP in recent years.

Benefiting from ennui over Labour’s stance on Kashmir, the Conservative party and Prime Minister Boris Johnson have been hitting the right buttons for the increasingly assertive community, visiting temples and promising easier visa norms before the elections.

The victory in this year’s election will likely make Johnson the most electorally successful Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher, another politician who was loved and loathed in almost equal measure. It was a disaster for left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who faced calls for his resignation even as the results rolled in.

Corbyn called the result “very disappointing” for his party and said he would not lead Labour into another election, though he resisted calls to quit immediately.

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court to challenge the Citizenship Amendment Act and asked the top court to hear the case right away, either today or Monday. But the request to schedule a hearing today wasn’t accepted by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde. She was told to approach the court registry officer who looks at cases to be mentioned before the bench when her counsel insisted for a listing on Monday next week.

Moitra’s petition is the second petition to reach the Supreme Court. Another petition on same issue filed by NGOs Rihai Manch and Citizens against Hate

The Indian Union Muslim League, a Kerala-based party that sends four lawmakers to Parliament, had yesterday petitioned the court to quash the law that it insisted, discriminates on the basis of religion and strikes at the root of the concept of secularism embodied in the Indian Constitution.

The two petitions have challenged the change in the citizenship law that enables immigrants of faiths other than Islam from three countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – to get Indian citizenship on the ground that they came to India due to religious persecution because they are minorities.

Many opposition parties had criticised the change in Parliament this week that has also reopened ethnic fault lines in regions such as Assam, which have a history of anti-immigration movements, especially against people from Bangladesh.

The changes to the citizenship law imply that any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan would not be counted as illegal migrants even if they come without documents. Also, people from these communities and countries would be eligible to get citizenship by naturalisation in half the time.

Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may cancel his visit to India for an annual summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that was to be held in Guwahati over the weekend against the backdrop of violent protests in Assam’s main city over changes to the country’s citizenship law, news agency Reuters has said, quoting Japan’s Jiji Press.

Hindustan Times had earlier reported on uncertainty around the summit.

Protests had broken out in parts of the north-eastern states this week as Parliament debated changes to the citizenship law that would let immigrants of faiths others than Islam from three neighbouring countries to gain Indian citizenship. By the time the bill received the presidential assent late Thursday evening, the protests had spread and led to at least two deaths.

A Japanese team that went to Guwahati to make a final assessment had been confined to its hotel on Thursday as the protests continued and flights were affected. Some of the banners and hoardings put up to welcome Abe were vandalised and burnt by protestors.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga later said that there was a need to pay close attention to local conditions, according to a Bloomberg report.

People familiar with developments on both sides had indicated on Thursday that there was a strong possibility of the meeting being called off as there was not enough hotel space in Delhi to accommodate the large delegation that would have accompanied Abe if the venue for the annual summit was shifted out of Guwahati.

India and Japan had officially announced December 15-17 as the dates for Abe’s visit but both sides had refrained from naming the venue. Officials from both sides had confirmed to HT that Guwahati was to be the venue.

Protests over the citizenship law, however, may force the governments to revisit the schedule.

Assam has been hit the most by the violence, and the subsequent lockdown. Military reinforcements were also sent and a near-total ban on internet services clamped in some regions on Thursday.

Team India is set to have a special guest at the nets when they head to Visakhapatnam for the second ODI of the series against West Indies. In what will undoubtedly be sweet music for the ears of cricket fans across the country, pace sensation Jasprit Bumrah will be at the nets to train with the Men in Blue as the team management checks his recovery after undergoing rehabilitation for the stress fracture he suffered on his back.

Speaking to IANS, sources in the know of developments said that Bumrah will bowl to the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and test his back as the training team led by Nitin Patel believe that he has recovered from the injury.

ALSO READ: In T20s, Virat Kohli’s new aerial route

“Bumrah will be joining the team at the nets in Vizag and his back will be tested as he goes full throttle against the world’s best batsmen like Kohli and Rohit. You can’t really have a better test than having a go against the best in business. As you ae aware, the team management has been very particular about injury management and that is why this process has been put in place. It will be an interesting battle at the nets for sure,” the source said.

Team India will be hosting both Sri Lanka and Australia in January before heading to New Zealand for a full-fledged tour which consists of two Tests, three-ODIs and five T20I and that is where Ravi Shastri and team want Bumrah to be 100 per cent.

Bumrah’s importance in the Indian set-up is well known and sources in the know of developments had earlier said that even the Indian team management didn’t wish to take any chance with his recovery post the stress fracture on his back and that is why he was sent to the UK for consultation.

“You can’t take a chance with one of your best bowlers even though his body was on auto-heal mode. So, he was sent to the UK for consultation. We have an important tour of New Zealand coming up in the new year and he will be an integral part of the planning there. So, the team management was very clear that they are happy to wait and have him back at his best in time for the New Zealand tour,” the source had told IANS.

It is believed that Bumrah could be brought back into the team for the ODI series against Australia as the management might not want to rush him for the Sri Lanka series in the first week of January. India play Australia in the first ODI on January 14 in Mumbai.