The winter session of the Parliament, which began on November 26 came to an end on 23rd of December. This, and the previous session of the Parliament, witnessed unbridled disruption and obstruction from Congress and its allies under one pretext or the other. From the standpoint of a dispassionate observer and a nationalist Indian, the Congress was actually bringing its political vendetta against the ruling party to the precincts of the Parliament, which in no circumstances can be called a healthy practice. The disruptive course of the Congress adopted in this and the previous session is least expected from it because the premier mainstream political party of the country has a huge baggage of historical service to the country in pre and post independence period. The Chairman of the Rajya Sabha is very right in saying that the MPs need to do some introspection and desist from demeaning the most prestigious institution of democracy in the country. This session had to deal with a large number of important and crucial bills most of which were pending from previous session, and additionally, some more bills were on the table. But the totally negative approach of the opposition stalled these bills, which included the GST bill as well. The draft bill provides for overhauling the direct tax structure of the country and is bound to bring relief to the tax payer. The Rajya Sabha, where the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is in a minority, lost 55 hours to disruptions by the Opposition. It was scheduled to work for 112 hours during the session. Chairman Hamid Ansari, in his concluding remarks said the session till last week had “seemed singularly unproductive in terms of legislative work.” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the Congress came up with “manufactured lame excuses” to disrupt Parliament, day after day. In his opinion, the principal opposition party in both houses has to take the blame for all that has gone wrong.
However the Lok Sabha, where the BJP has a comfortable majority, worked for 115 hours – an hour extra compared to the scheduled 114 hours. The Lok Sabha was able to pass bills and function despite the disruptions because the Congress is in a minority there. The cost of running each House is Rs 29,000 per minute and the loss of hours in the Rajya Sabha has resulted in a loss of nearly Rs 10 Crore to the exchequer.
In final analysis, the Lok Sabha passed 14 Bills registering 104 per cent productivity. The Rajya Sabha, however, passed nine bills registering 46 per cent productivity. The Goods and Services Tax bill could not be passed in this session, endangering the reform which needs to be rolled out by April 1, 2016. The Lok Sabha spent nearly 50 hours on non-legislative business and 33 hours on legislation, according to statistics compiled by the Parliament tracking agency PRS Legislative Research.
The Upper House spent 37 hours on non-legislative work and less than 10 hours on legislation. 65 per cent of its time was spent on non-legislative business. The Question Hour – one hour set off every working day of each session exclusively for members to question various ministries on their functioning – in Lower House achieved 87 per cent productivity, clocking nearly 15 hours. In the Rajya Sabha, the Question Hour clocked only 14 per cent productive time at just 2.4 hours for the entire session. After days of repeated disruptions, the Rajya Sabha functioned for five hours at a stretch on December 22, to pass the new juvenile justice bill which had been passed by the Lok Sabha in May last.
In parliamentary democracy, opposition in the Parliament has a right to raise questions and seek explanations from the Government on current affairs in the country. Opposition is an important and integral part of the democratic process. However, the opposition has as much of responsibility of running the session smoothly as the Government or the treasury benches. The real driving force behind both is the national interest. Our democracy has to travel a long distance to imbibe the spirit of true democracy in letter and in spirit. By how the Congress carried itself in two previous sessions in the Rajya Sabha, it is evident that it has to learn to be tolerant and focus on public issues and not strive to settle personal score under the precincts of the Parliament.
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