NEW DELHI: With Parliament caught in an unparliamentary storm of invective over black money, the Secretariats of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha are overworked, expunging bilious remarks of MPs from the record. Even Rajya Sabha vice-chairman P J Kurian had to expunge his own remark against Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. In the Lok Sabha, Samajwadi Party MP Akshay Yadav tore up papers and flung them at Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, inviting her wrath. Yadav is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha. SP legislator Naresh Agarwal’s remarks on November 22 and 24 were repeatedly expunged, while Power Minister Piyush Goyal faced a similar fate on November 24. Even the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, the suave Ghulam Nabi Azad, found his remark expunged on November 22.
Invective tainted the debate on demonetisation last week in Parliament. The floor leader of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the Lok Sabha, Bhartruhari Mahtab noted the trend is disturbing and unfortunate. “The tendency of the members of the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha to speak out of turn and without the permission of the Chair appears to be on the rise. In such situations, their remarks have every chance of getting expunged from the official record. Even the vice chairman of the Rajya Sabha said something on the spur of the moment, which he had to expunge himself. The tradition is that the Speaker and the Chair should speak less, but in times of acrimony and deadlock they have to support members who want both Houses to function normally,” said Mahtab.
The BJD leader, who is a veteran Parliamentarian, argued that the senior leaders and members should set the example by restricting unruly behaviour and exercising discretion in their speech.
Senior Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Rashid Alvi claims that the root cause of the disturbing trend of expunging remarks and unruly behaviour is the anti-defection law. “The situation in the Parliament is such that all MPs are bound by whips issued by their respective parties. There is no freedom for Members. What a single person decides is passed by Parliament. The anti-defection law should be amended and should apply only when there is a no-confidence motion against the government or when an adjournment motion is placed before the House,” Alvi told The Sunday Standard.
However, in the past Parliament had seen even more acrimony during the UPA days, when a lawmaker even threatened an opposition member with pepper spray. The ongoing Winter session appears to be no different.