NEW DELHI: With the first week of the second leg of the Budget session washed out due to protests from both Treasury benches and the Opposition side, experts have said that the real concern is the loss of time allotted for crucial question hours and the passing of the Union Budget without any discussion and Parliamentary oversight.
Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha have been in a deadlock for the entire week as the ruling party and Opposition are engaged in a tug-of-war over Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s remarks in London. Both Houses have failed to transact any business since the session reconvened after a month-long recess. Disruptions in Parliament proceedings have become a norm in the last two decades, said Dr M R Madhavan, president of PRS Legislative Research, a think-tank on Parliament procedures. Speaking to this newspaper, Madhavan said Parliament plays a vital role in fixing accountability of the government and it’s high time Parliamentarians come together to take steps for the smooth functioning of the House.
“We should recall what Ambedkar said about Parliamentary democracy. According to him, the idea of Parliamentary democracy is that the government is held accountable daily in Parliament. If we are losing that, we are losing something central to what a Parliamentary democracy is,” he said. More worrying is the passing of the Finance Bill without any discussion, he said.
“I am concerned that the Union Budget of Rs 40 lakh crore is going to be approved without any discussion or any parliamentary oversight. The public has the right to know how their money is going to be utilised,” he said. Instead of talking about the cost of washout, “We should be debating the cost of Parliament not examining whether Rs 40 lakh crore is being properly deployed,” he asserted.
The cost of each sitting of Parliament is calculated by dividing the total cost of running both Houses by the number of sittings. Another casualty is the Question Hour, one of the most important businesses of the House, said Madhavan said. “With the continuous disruptions, Question Hours are gone every day. How will you hold a minister accountable if the Question Hour is not there,” he said. Along with Question Hour, the lawmakers are also missing out on the opportunity to table Private Member Bills.
“It’s not easy to draft a private member bill. Some MPs spend weeks drafting the Bill and it becomes a sheer waste,” he said. To break the impasse, all party leaders and Parliamentarians need to come together and chalk out strategies, he said. “We are talking about Indian democracy for the next 20-30 years. How we are going to behave and a more sensible way of holding the government accountable.”
“The British Parliament has built the tradition of conducting the House smoothly. We also have to build that. They allow everybody to speak. They don’t see any disruptions except occasional walkouts,” he said
“We are only 70 years old. We should learn from other people and figure out how we can strengthen our system,” said Madhavan.