Chair under fire; pandemonium now normal in Parliament
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, February 13: First half of the Budget session of Parliament concluded on an acrimonious note. The presiding officers of the two Houses of Parliament are now being openly attacked by Congress for expunging statements made by party leaders in the two Houses.
With the second half of the Budget session set to commence from March 13, it’s becoming more evident that the big state elections this may year weigh on the functioning of the two Houses of Parliament. While three Northeastern states – Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland – are slated for polls in the next few weeks, Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will square off in April-May in the Karnataka Assembly elections.
“The Parliamentary disruptions that set in since the beginning of the tenure of the UPA-II in 2009 have now become established norms. Parliamentary productivity has been badly hit. Now Parliamentary disruption is part of the political strategy, and Opposition parties justify the trend citing the precedents set by the BJP as an Opposition party by quoting statements of late Arun Jaitely and Sushma Swaraj,” Anand Mishra, a long-term Parliament observer, said. Mishra stressed that Parliamentary debate known for erudite discussion is now a thing of past.
The first half of the Budget session of Parliament saw a near washout. The Opposition agreed to take part in the debate on motion of thanks to President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the joint session of Parliament as part of give and take formula wherein they were allowed to raise the issue of the Adani group share prices’ slump on the bourses. But Congress didn’t hide anguish over the presiding officers of the two Houses of Parliament expunging references made by former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha over the alleged relationship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the business tycoon Gautam Adani and similar actions against leader of Opposition in Congress Mallikarjuna Kharge.
Political observers noted that the BJP, while in Opposition during the UPA term, had levelled a barrage of ‘Mauni Baba’ barbs at the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but similar attempts by Congress against the ruling dispensation are not being allowed by the presiding officers to go on record. Congress particularly is not stepping back from the attack on the government over the ongoing Adani issue, which is also being heard now by the Supreme Court, while investors are counting their losses.
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