NEW DELHI: The Opposition and the government clashed in Parliament on Wednesday over the timing of an obituary reference for the seven soldiers killed in the Nagrota attack in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Congress demanded an obituary reference to the soldiers but were told that this would be done after the operation was over.

“There is a practice in Parliament that whenever someone dies, we respect them. This is for the first time that there was no such obituary offered for those soldiers who died (in Nagrota attack). So the Opposition walked out (in Lok Sabha),” Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said.

When the Lok Sabha resumed, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan expressed her displeasure when Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge told her that the Opposition blamed the government because her office may have not been informed about the death. Mahajan said this wasn’t true because the decision to wait for the combing operations to end was hers.

The BJP hit back, accusing the Congress of “politicising” the issue.