Budget session heads for complete washout

After the House was adjourned for the day without taking up the no-confidence motion for the 13th day, Sonia slammed “shameful” parliamentary affairs minister for the lie on the floor of the House as the government guilty of blockade with the help of allies like AIADMK and TDP was blaming the Congress.

New Delhi : Parliament headed for closure on Friday without transacting any substantial business in the month-long second half of the budget session as both the Houses were again rocked by ruckus and adjourned for the day on Thursday amid the government and the opposition blaming each other of not allowing them to function.

United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi was quite furious gesturing “mera naam liya, mera naam liya” in the Lok Sabha in a futile attempt in the pandemonium to attract eyes of Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to allow her to respond to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar accusing her and her son Rahul, the Congress President, by name as also the Congress for disrupting Parliament every day.

The Speaker, however, made amends in an advisory to the media four hours later that she has expunged names of Sonia and Rahul from the minister’s remarks. Expunging of a minister’s remark is very unusual as it is always removal of the unparliamentary comments of the MPs and not of a minister in this manner. After the House was adjourned for the day without taking up the no-confidence motion for the 13th day, Sonia slammed “shameful” parliamentary affairs minister for the lie on the floor of the House as the government guilty of blockade with the help of allies like AIADMK and TDP was blaming the Congress.

She told a private TV channel: “Congress has always been sitting patiently and requesting a discussion. It’s the government and its allies that have not been allowing Parliament to function.”

Sonia was in a full form right from the morning when she along with Rahul led over a dozen opposition parties demonstrate under Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the Parliament House before the two Houses met. They were protesting at the government not allowing discussions on all inconvenient issues, including banking scam, dilution of SC/ST atrocities act and CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) paper leaks.

Ananth Kumar dismissed the demonstration as a “drama” and repeated in the House a decision taken on Wednesday that all MPs of the ruling NDA will forfeit their salaries and allowances voluntarily under the principle of “no work, no pay” since the Opposition did not allow any business whole of the past one month. Strangely, the decision to forgo the earnings was not taken in any meeting of the MPs but by the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Modi, surprising even many BJP MPs.

In a repeat of daily ritual, the Speaker brought up the notices for the no-confidence motion and then adjourned the House citing the ruckus not allowing her to ascertain if the required 50 members supported the notices to censure the government. She allowed Congress group leader Mallikarjun Kharge, CPI(M) leader P Karunakaran and Trinamool’s Prof. Sougata Roy to speak briefly and all wanted discussion on no-confidence and all other issues.

The Congress accused her of helping the government as otherwise she could have expelled a handful of AIADMK members agitating in the House to take up the no-confidence motion. Its senior leaders said the government seems scared that it may lose the no-confidence despite having a thumping majority because of not only the allies but even many BJP MPs were unhappy.

The no-confidence motion overrides all other business and the Speaker has the responsibility to do all that can pave discussion and voting on it. Mahajan allowed the parliamentary affairs minister to launch his anti-Congress diatribe every day but never asked him to bring a motion to expel the disrupting members.