NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari expressed his anguish in the house as three union ministers were absent during Question Hour when question related to their concerned ministries were asked.
Towards the end of the Question Hour, a question related to Ministry of Shipping about water taxis was asked but neither the member who had asked the question nor the minister to answer it was present in the house.
For the next two consecutive questions, there was similar state with both questioner and minister absent from the house. This gave a chance to the opposition to ask the Chair that even no cabinet minister was in the house as per the norm.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that all three ministers are absent and even there is no cabinet minister. He taunted that “is this the shape of things to come?”
Calling it an extraordinary situation, Ansari said: “Can the answer be laid on the Table? No questioner; no Minister. This is not a happy state of affairs,” said Ansari.
Only ministers present in the house were Ministers of state Nirmala Sitharaman, Ram Kirpal Yadav and Sajiv Kumar Balyan. All these ministers were seen looking at each other while Ansari was looking for concerned ministers.
Trinamool member Sukhendu Sekhar Roy appealed to the Chair that a stricture should be issued against the Government.
“This is ‘maximum Ministers, minimum governance’!” taunted Ghulam Nabi Azad.
The Question Hour ended shortly after that.