NEW DELHI: With the winter session of Parliament in a limbo ever since it started, a visibly upset President Pranab Mukherjee upbraided the Opposition for disruptions, telling them in no uncertain terms that their strategy was tantamount to “gagging of the majority’’ by the minority.
President Mukherjee was almost in his previous avatar when as Leader of the Lok Sabha, he would lose his cool over the disruptions caused by Opposition parties and by the members of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh over the demand for creation of Telangana.
Like a school teacher, the President lectured the members of the Opposition parties that the House ran on 3-Ds—debate, dissension and decision— and said there was no scope for ‘disruption’ in a parliamentary democracy. “Disruption is totally unacceptable in Parliamentary system. People send representatives to speak and not to sit on dharna. Not to create any trouble on the floor,” he said while delivering a lecture on electoral reforms on the Defence Estates Day Lecture.
The President even cautioned the Opposition that prolong disruption of Parliament could come back to haunt them. “It means you are hurt, you are gagging the majority. The majority never participates in this disruption. Only minority comes to the well, shouts slogans, stops the proceedings and creates a situation in which the Chair has no option but to adjourn the House.
This is totally unacceptable,’’ he said. The President’s sharp rebuke came even as the Opposition members holding placards held a dharna terming the demonetisation decision of the government, taken a month ago, as a ‘black day’. Advising the Opposition to find some other platform and not Parliament to register their protest, Mukherjee said, “For demonstration, you can choose any other places. But for God’s sake, do your job. You are meant to transact business. You are meant to devote your time for exercising the authority of members, particularly Lok Sabha members over money and finance.”
He, however, clarified that it was not the leaders of his erstwhile Congress party he was targeting, since it was everyone’s responsibility to have a functioning Parliament.