The Monsoon Session of Parliament on Monday began on a stormy note with the Opposition raising a din and not allowing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introduce the newly inducted Ministers to the Rajya Sabha. The agitated MPs came into the well of the House shouting slogans and also disrupted Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu’s opening remarks.
The first day was marked by repeated adjournments as the Opposition continued to protest on various issues despite appeals by the chair to let the proceedings commence.
The Opposition made its intentions clear as soon as Naidu started his speech in the pre-lunch session. Similar scenes were witnessed when Modi came to the House to introduce his Ministers.
Expressing anguish over the conduct of the protesting members, Modi questioned their mentality behind their behaviour of not allowing him to introduce women, Dalit and scheduled tribe MPs who have been made Ministers.
The Prime Minister said when the new Union Ministers belonging to rural background and children of the farming community were being introduced to the House, some opposition party members were not happy.
He said a large number of women, Dalit and those belonging to scheduled tribes were also inducted into the cabinet but some opposition members did not want to hear their names and give them the due respect.
“What is this mentality?,” he wondered and added it was for the first time that the House was witnessing “such a mentality”.
Amidst din, Modi laid the list of newly-inducted ministers on the table of the House.
Meanwhile, the Chairman did not allow the 17 notices by different Opposition parties to suspend the scheduled business of the house and take up the matters raised by them.
Giving his reason for doing so, Naidu said it was not feasible to take 17 issues in one go, and assured the members that all the
important matters would be taken up in due course of time. However, the Opposition members did not relent forcing the chair to adjourn the house till 2.00 pm.
The new Leader of the House and Union minister Piyush Goyal said condemned the behaviour of the opposition and said such a conduct would be harmful for the democratic traditions of the country. He also said it was a tradition to introduce the new ministers to the house since the time of first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Earlier in the morning, when the House assembled, the proceedings were adjourned for an hour as a mark of respect to departed sitting MPs Raghunath Mohapatra and Rajeev Satav.