NEW DELHI: The gridlock in Parliamentary appears to have left the BJP elders fuming band furious. After the BJP veterans Murali Manohar Joshi and L K Advani, the octogenarian Lok Sabha MP Shanta Kumar too has jumped the gun by comparing the pandemonium in the House to street-corner fights and sloganeering. In a letter to the Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, the BJP veteran has sought punitive actions against “erring” Parliamentarians.
Even a visibly miffed Advani met the Speaker in her chamber during which he is said to have expressed his “anguish” at the pandemonium and “kinds of slogan shouting” in the well of the House.
“The politics of the country should be mature, but in contrast we are witnessing loss of Parliamentary values. People coming in the public gallery to watch the proceedings of the House smile in mocking ways at the MPs. The word – politics – is no more dignified,” Kumar in his letter to the Speaker noted.
Incidentally, Advani, Joshi and Kumar are the elder troika of the BJP in the Lok Sabha, who sincerely attend proceedings of the House each day even while they do not make any interventions. The
BJP has designated the three leaders as members of the Margdarshak Mandal.
“The spectacle in the well of the House resembles street-corner fights and slogan shouting. Some Opposition parties have definitely crossed the lines by disrupting the proceedings of the House in
undignified manner. The dignity of the Lok Sabha appears to have gone down by several notches,” Kumar wrote in his letter to the Speaker.
Apparently Advani had also wondered during his outbursts on Wednesday as to why the allowances and salaries of the “unruly” MPs are not cut as a way to restore order in the House. Echoing the
sentiments of Advani, Kumar called upon the Speaker to take “punitive actions against the erring MPs”. “Even while you have exercised utmost restraint in conducting the business of the House, you should take actions against the unruly MPs, which may include cutting salaries and allowances and even suspension of such members for the whole session,” the BJP veteran, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, besides having been a senior minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet.
Incidentally, the Trinamool Congress MP Idris Ali confronted Advani after the Lok Sabha was adjourned during the Question Hour on Thursday. “Are you angry with us,” Ali was seen asking Advani with folded hands. Afterwards Ali sat beside Advani and told him that the senior ministers had attributed his outbursts on Wednesday to the behaviour of the Opposition. Advani was seen gesturing to Ali, that he had not been able and see the proceedings of the House since the Opposition MPs had been standing in front of him and the treasury benches while indulging in slogan shouting. Advani was seen telling the TMC MP that he had not been anguished because of the behaviour of any individual law-maker.