The Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die on Thursday, ending the four-week-long disruption-ridden second leg of the Budget Session where Treasury and Opposition members locked horns over Rahul Gandhi’s “democracy under attack” remark and the Adani issue.
The was adjourned but not before yet another round of differences between the Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and Congress led Opposition over the extension of suspension of Congress MP Rajani Ashokrao Patil. Patil was suspended for filming proceedings of the House.
Dhankhar said after taking inputs from the privileges committee which is investigating the matter, the committee has sought an extension of time till the first week of the Monsoon session to complete the investigation.
Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge raised the issue of Patil calling it “gross parliamentary misdemeanour” and a “blatant violation” of the rules of procedure. Criticising the extension of suspension in a letter to Dhankhar, Kharge said meting out such a “disgraceful treatment” to Patil is a “gross insult” to a devoted woman parliamentarian.
“In such a situation, I cannot help myself but to place on record in strongest possible terms my grave displeasure and anguish, which is shared by my party colleagues as well as my other colleagues of 19 like minded opposition parties in both Houses of Parliament, over this gross parliamentary misdemeanour,” Kharge said in his second letter to Dhankar for the consecutive day. A day earlier he had expressed his dismay over a ruling by the Chairman on his point order pertaining to Rahul Gandhi issue.
Before that, the DMK’s Tiruchi Siva and the Congress’ Shaktisinh Gohil sought clarity over the implications of Dhankhar’s Wednesday decision to reject Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge’s objection to Rajya Sabha discussing a statement of Rahul Gandhi.
Amid protest by opposition members over the suspension issue, Dhankhar read out his valedictory remarks, stating that the 259th session of Rajya Sabha was closing “albeit on a note of concern”. He said it was worrisome and alarming that the “paramountcy of debate, dialogue, deliberation and discussion in Parliament has yielded to disruption and disturbance”.
The productivity of the first part of the Budget Session was 56.3 per cent. For the second part it plummeted to an abysmal 6.4 per cent, Dhankhar said.
“Cumulatively, the House productivity was only 24.4 per cent,” he said adding, “Disruptions claimed 103 hours and 30 minutes of its time.” In the forenoon, the House was adjourned following uproarious scenes with the opposition demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Adani issue, while BJP members demanded Rahul Gandhi’s apology for his democracy remarks made abroad and said they would not allow “Bharat mata” to be insulted.