A Rajya Sabha corridor during a rehearsal for the upcoming Parliament session that starts on September 14. (Express photo by Renuka Puri)

The monsoon session of Parliament will not have Question Hour; Zero Hour, during which members raise matters of public importance, will be curtailed; and there will be no private members’ Bill, notifications issued by Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats on Wednesday stated.

Protesting the move, Opposition leaders accused the government of trying to reduce Parliament to a “notice board”, and using the pandemic as an “excuse to murder democracy”.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said the government has had discussions with opposition parties about doing away with the Question Hour.

Joshi said the government is ready to take up unstarred questions and a curtailed Zero Hour, and maintained that it was never said that there will be no Zero Hour – only, it could be curtailed.

Members get answers to unstarred questions in writing, and it is deemed to be laid on the table of the House.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad is learnt to have written to House Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, conveying his reservation. In his letter, dated August 31, Azad is learnt to have stated that it would be inappropriate to curtail them since they give MPs an opportunity to raise issues of national importance and public concern.

Azad, sources said, suggested that if there is a pressing shortage of time, Zero Hour can be reduced to half an hour and Question Hour should continue for an hour.

Trinamool Congress MP and party’s Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien said Opposition MPs will lose the right to question the government and alleged that the pandemic was being used as an “excuse to murder democracy”. In the past, he said, Question Hour was dispensed with during Parliament sessions called for special purposes, but the monsoon session is a “regular session”.

But Anil Baluni, Rajya Sabha MP and BJP’s media cell chief, pointed out that Assemblies have functioned in various states after March, when a nationwide lockdown was imposed, and there has been no Question Hour in Assemblies of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. In states where BJP is the main opposition, the party did not raise any objections, he said. Baluni said Question Hour in Parliament was routinely disturbed by opposition parties. In the last last eight sessions, he said, only 59 hours were used out of 162 hours allotted for Question Hour.

Joshi said he and his junior ministers — Arjun Ram Meghwal and V Muraleedharan — had spoken to leaders of every party, and “except TMC’s Derek O’Brien everyone agreed” to do away with Question Hour.