No performance

It appears that country is going to suffer a colossal loss of crores of rupees in this Parliament session thanks to the egoistic politics of the Central government. It is a matter of concern that the ruling NDA government did not take any measure to facilitate smooth conduct of Parliament. For the man on the street it appears as if the government gave more importance to political fall out rather than addressing various issues that were before it.

It is painful to see that the money that is being fleeced from the public in the name of GST and other taxes is being wasted in holding unfruitful sessions of Parliament. The Lok Sabha Speaker and Chairman of Rajya Sabha have been adjourning both the houses for want of order.

Repeated disruptions marred the proceedings during the last four weeks, with TDP members agitating for a Special Category Status for Andhra Pradesh and AIADMK members raising the issue of constitution of Cauvery water board.

Though this is not the first time that Parliament faced such a ruckus, what is disturbing is that the BJP leaders before 2014 elections criticised the then UPA government of having failed to conduct Parliament in an orderly manner and even called the Congress Party a ‘party of adjournments’.

Once having got into the driver’s seat, the BJP too seems to be giving greater importance to political considerations rather than taking positive measures to resolve contentious issue. If the government had agreed and allowed discussion on the no confidence motion, the issue would have died down in two days but call it wrong political calculations or egoistic attitude, it has been stonewalling the debate.

The Speaker has been singing the same song “since the House is not in order cannot take up the no confidence motion”. If the BJP has been behaving so with a view to the Assembly elections in Karnataka, then it should understand that people judge the parties by their performance and by theatrics. It’s time the national parties wake up.

A similar situation was witnessed during the winter session of Parliament in 2010. It was held hostage to protests and recorded its worst performance in close to two decades. The protests of the BJP and many other parties rocked both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha after the CAG report on 2G scam became public. The Lower House and the Upper House could utilise only 6% and 2% of their allotted time. The report spoke about a possible loss of Rs1.76 lakh crore in the sale of 2G spectrum.

The Opposition demanded that the government must constitute a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the scam—a demand the Manmohan Singh government rejected firmly. This stand, however, just lasted for two months, as in the 2011 budget session, the government agreed to form a JPC to avoid washout of another session. The Supreme Court cancelled the spectrum and licenses allotted and consequently the CBI framed charge sheet against former telecom minister A Raja and his party colleague Kanimozhi.

And just like the current session where amid continuous disruptions, the government managed to pass the finance bills, in the winter session of 2010 the Centre got approval for supplementary demands for Rs 46,000 crore.

The 2010 session and the current session have proved that whenever allegations of corruption come up in the public domain, Parliament witnesses a major uproar and disruptions.

The 2010 session notched up a dubious record in terms of performance in recent times. Earlier, Parliament could not function for 17 days in 2001 and 45 days in 1987 over the Tehelka and Bofors scam, respectively. The present session now joins the ‘no performance’ list.