ENARADA, New Delhi
By Sri Krishna
Within a span of ten days the BJP-led NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had egg on its face in both Houses of Parliament clearly showing lack of Parliamentary management of the government.
What is indeed very humiliating for the government was that the second embarrassing moment for the government was in the Lok Sabha on March 13 where it has a clear majority.
In the Lok Sabha, the Congress with 44-members which is not even recognised as the Opposition party stalled the debate on the General Budget on the grounds that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley should be present in the House even as the Government contended that in Jaitley’s absence the Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha represented the government.
But, Congress attack spearheaded by none other than the party President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi refused to budge and when the Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu informed the Speaker Mrs. Sumitra Mahajan that any other party could initiate the discussion met with strong resistance as even parties like BJD and Trinamul Congress wanted the Congress to do so.
However, Congress leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge stuck firmly to the party stand that Jaitley be present and forced the Speaker to postpone the debate on the Budget to March 16 when Jaitley is expected back from London.
Ironically, the top three BJP leaders – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaitley and Home Minister Rajnath Singh are out of the country with Singh having gone to Japan.
In fact, the three of them being away has irked even BJP members who privately expressed their unhappiness saying “we are asked to remain in Delhi during the session and even on weekends we cannot go to our constituency while the top three leaders are away.”
With the debate on the budget listed for the afternoon of March 13, when the Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha began speaking, Congress members stormed into the Well, saying the debate should not be taken up as Jaitley was not present in the House.
Congress members, led by their leader Kharge, insisted that the debate on such an important subject could not be initiated in the absence of the Finance Minister.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi was seen asking her party MPs to oppose the government’s contention that the debate should be allowed to start.
“No, No… This is an issue,” Gandhi was heard saying as Naidu asked Congress to not make an issue of a “non-issue”.
Kharge’s refrain was that the opposition had all the respect for the Speaker and was not contesting her ruling but it was a matter of Parliamentary tradition.
Even a brief adjournment failed to cool tempers and the opposition attack spearheaded by Congress ensured that the debate did not start as they kept up the noisy protests and remained in the well of the Lok Sabha.
Naidu telling the members that Jaitley had gone to London for the unveiling of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi on the UK government’s invite and if Congress members do not want to speak on Budget till he returns, members of other parties could speak today failed to have any impact.
This was endorsed by the Speaker but by then it seemed rather late in the day for the other parties too joined the Congress and refused to speak.
Sensing that the Congress-led opposition was in no mood to relent, Naidu said if the members do not want to speak, the Speaker could adjourn the House till 2.30 P.M. and take up other business.
In the history of Rajya Sabha it was the fourth time that an amendment moved by the opposition to the motion of thanks to the President’s address has been passed.
The amendment was moved by the CPI (M) members Sitaram Yechury and P. Rajeeve and it was passed through division of votes after the government’s plea for withdrawal of the step failed.
“There is no mention in the address about the failure of the government to curb high level corruption and to bring back black money,” read the amendment.
Naidu sought to dissuade “senior member” Yechury from moving the amendment, saying there was a mention about black money.
He said his concern has been noted and hence should withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Yechury said normally he would accept such a request, but he was pressing for the amendment as the government left no choice for even after 14 hours of debate, opposition was denied opportunity to seek clarification on the Prime Minister’s reply.
He also took objection to the Prime Minister leaving the House soon after his hour-long reply.
The previous times such a thing happened was on January 30, 1980, during Janata Party rule, then on December 29, 1989, during V.P. Singh-led National Front and third time on March 12, 2001 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government was in power.
Posted on March 14 , 2015, 10:00am
(Author is a Senior Journalist and his email id is srikrishna1952@gmail.com)
