Editorial: Parliament washout

The government must ask itself why it adopted an unaccommodating attitude towards its political rivals

Hyderabad: The intransigence of the NDA government is largely to be blamed for the near-total washout of the Budget session of Parliament. As a result, neither the pressing public issues nor any important Bills could be discussed. It would be frustrating for the general public to learn that while the Lok Sabha had a productivity of just 5.29% in the second part of the Budget session, losing more than 96 hours to disruptions, the Rajya Sabha lost 103.5 hours and had 6.4% productivity rate. Over 103 hours were lost to disruptions. The Centre was consistently adamant and unyielding in the face of the combined opposition demand for setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the row surrounding the Hindenburg report on Adani Group’s stock manipulations. Instead, the treasury benches disrupted the proceedings of both Houses demanding an apology from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for his ‘democracy under attack’ comment made in London. The acrimony between the government and the opposition deepened further after Rahul was disqualified from the Lok Sabha a day after his conviction in a criminal defamation case by a Surat court last month. The business of the House was hit hard as the two sides traded accusations and adamantly refused to rise above their differences. A tumultuous standoff resulted in a total legislative gridlock. For 15 days in a row, members from the opposition and treasury benches refused to yield any ground from their maximalist positions. In such a situation, the onus is always on the ruling party to ensure that the legislative business is conducted in an orderly fashion through an accommodative approach.

The obduracy displayed by the treasury benches is a huge disservice to the people, who expect their elected representatives to make the most of the parliamentary platform to debate and discuss issues of public interest. While Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar has observed that the ‘weaponising of politics’ by stalling Parliament’s functioning was fraught with serious consequences for our polity, the government must ask itself why it adopted an unaccommodating attitude towards its political rivals and preferred to shy away from meaningful dialogue. On expected lines, both the opposition and the BJP assigned blame on each other for the stalling of Parliament. The first phase of the Budget session was from January 31 to February 13. Then the second phase lasted from March 13 till April 6. There were 25 sittings of the Lok Sabha in this entire session. Several Bills were stuck while public issues did not get a chance to be discussed. Barring work in the Committees that examined Budget proposals, the policies and programmes of the government were not subjected to steady scrutiny by Parliament. The country watched helplessly the passage of Rs 45 lakh crore of budgetary provisions of the Finance Bill without any meaningful discussion.

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