Parliament stuck for second day
Photo by: ANI New Delhi : Parliament could not function on Tuesday for the second day of the month-long second phase of the budget session due to pandemonium on more than one issue and not the PNB scam alone.
Members of the Telugu Desam Party, an ally of BJP in the government, and other Andhra Pradesh parties were in the well of the two Houses for special status and central funds to the state while the AIADMK members joined them to press for a Cauvery water management board. The Trinamul Congress and Left members joining the Congress to raise slogans on the PNB scam.
The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day 12 minutes past 12, washing out a discussion admitted on “alleged systemic irregularities in banking sector over the years” as sought by two Kerala MPs — N K Premachandran of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and K C Venugopal of the Congress.
The Andhra and AIADMK members were in the well raising slogans with placards even five minutes before the Lok Sabha re-assembled and Speaker Sumitra Mahajan carried on tabling of reports by ministers and members amid the deafening slogans.
The Rajya Sabha was shut down at 3.30 pm after three adjournments even while a discussion permitted on Monday on “fraud in public sector banks” remained hanging as the slogans from the well prevented any business.
The day began with the Congress MPs led by party chief Rahul Gandhi stagding a protest near Mahatma Gandhi’’s statue in the Parliament complex over the PNB fraud and then taking the protest to both the Houses, raising slogans for answers from the Prime Minister.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar in the Lok Sabha and his junior Vijay Goyal in the Rajya Sabha rose to assert that the government was ready to discuss the bank irregularities but the Congress was running away from debate after demanding it.
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge protested that the debate should have been on his adjournment motion: “The reported incidents of massive financial defaults and frauds of thousands of crores in various nationalised and other banks in the country which resulted in loot of public money and the perpetrators of the crime were allowed to leave the country despite complaints being made against them which needs to be addressed by government.”
After the Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day, Rahul Gandhi put out a tweet under heading “#ModiRobsIndia.”
“Sansad me aaj ek jordar nara sunai pad rahaa hai: Nirav Modi, Modi Nirav.
“Ek Nirav Modi hai, dusra Modi Nirav hai.”
(Slogan heard in Parliament today: Nirav Modi, Modi Nirav. One is Nirav Modi (reference to fugitive diamantaire), another Modi is nirav, meaning quiet or cool).
The second reference was to Prime Minister Modi keeping quiet even as the Opposition wants him to speak out on the massive banking scam by Nirav and others.