Winter Logjam In Parliament: Cold Finish For The Season

The just concluded winter session of Indian parliament will go down in the history for more reasons than one. It was just this time around that religious issues rocked the Parliament than anything else. Whether it was an inciting speech by a minister of state rank Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti or the opposition holding the Rajya Sabha at ransom over ‘ghar wapsi’ being carried out by Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Sangh Parivar; the Parliament developed a deep gash during this session.

Opposition kept insisting that the Prime Minister addresses the Parliament over these issues. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi did give statement on the comments made by Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Ghar Wapsi was something he didn’t want to mess with. He stayed away even while the opposition parties demanded his explanation on the issue.

It isn’t that this is the first time Parliament went this bad over PM’s presence in the house. In December 2009, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stayed away from the Parliament for most of the session while the now ruling BJP sat in the opposition. Tables have turned now, with majority of BJP MPs occupying the seats. Though Congress and other parties have less or miniscule presence in Lok Sabha, it was through the Rajya Sabha that the opposition parties decided to wield their swords over.

In all, the winter session of the Parliament was a mix of controversy and passing of bills. Though the government managed to pass a number of legislations over some key bills that were aimed at reformation such as coal blocks allocation and insurance bill; the end result was a little less tangible than desired.

The month-long session saw Lok Sabha set a record of sorts by passing 18 legislations in 22 sittings, including coal mines allocation and labour laws.

A good three hours were lost owing to disruptions initially over Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti’s remark which left Prime Minister Modi more than red-faced. This over, the crucial time at Rajya Sabha was taken over by opposition creating ruckus over Sangh Parivar’s, perhaps badly-timed programme such as Ghar Wapsi where Muslims and Christians were brought back into the folds of Hindu religion, albeit clouded in grey shades.

Though RS passed 12 bills through 22 sittings, 62 hours were lost over issues that involved religious conversions and bringing back the black money into India.

The reforms agenda suffered a major hit with insurance laws which were to raise the cap of FDI remaining pending. The coal mines bill that would have paved way for fresh coal blocks to be allocated in fresh auction following their de-allocation by Supreme Court in the past also remained pending.

With this, the government’s to-do list seems to have just gotten longer. This disruption, which isn’t new to Indian Parliament have given the government a huge blow on its economic-overhaul plans and subsequent measures.

The government had listed over 37 bills to be passed during the session that just concluded enveloped in lots of bitterness. While this number was the target, legislators in both houses only managed to pass only 11 bills out of the entire lot. Lok Sabha worked more diligently than Rajya Sabha.

The reason for this could also be that while Lok Sabha had more number of BJP MPs, with the opposition parties terming it the ‘arrogance of numbers’ with BJP having 282 seats in its kitty over 545 member assembly, the otherwise peaceful Rajya Sabha saw more number of disruptions, thus causing a lot of damage to the long term goals of the government. Congress holds 68 seats in the RS against the 43 seats in the house held by BJP.

The only time both opposition and ruling parties came together and unanimously said something was post Peshawar attack where hundreds of school children were killed by extremist groups in Pakistan. All the parties unvaryingly condemned the 26/11 attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi being granted bail by a Pakistani court. The result of this was astounding. In a rare show of strength, Pakistan didn’t release Lakhvi and he was retained in the custody of Pakistan following Pakistan’s federal government approaching the Supreme Court challenging his bail.
Image: wikipedia