NEW DELHI: Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Friday abruptly ended a calling attention motion in the Lok Sabha after a furore over some objectionable remarks made by a Bharatiya Janata Party member against Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Condemning Neeta Pateria's remarks against her and the United Progressive Alliance Government, which drew a strong reaction from the ruling party members, Mr. Chatterjee adjourned the House and said the motion was over. The House earlier saw a brief adjournment on the same issue.

Raising in the calling attention motion the issue of "derogatory" language about Hindu deities in certain M.A. textbooks of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Vijay Kumar Malhotra (BJP) and others sought to know what steps the Government had taken in this regard.

Earlier in his statement, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said IGNOU decided to discontinue the course and set up an expert committee to review it. The university would take further action on receipt of the committee's recommendations.

It had written to all students who already cleared the course, asking them to ignore the earlier version of the study material.

The Ministry had sought permission from the President, Chancellor of all universities, for initiating an enquiry.

There were some objectionable portions in the study material of Module-3 (Religious Tradition and Philosophy of Bhakti, in English, and `Dharmik Paramparayen aur Bhakti Darshan,' in Hindi) of an elective course in an M.A. history programme in April 2006.

"I am equally hurt and we have decided to withdraw these from the course," Mr. Singh said.

Not satisfied with the answer, Mr. Malhotra drew the attention of the House to objectionable references made to Jats in NCERT Class XII books.

The entire Opposition backed him on the issue.

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