After days of rancour, the Parliament ended on a note of all-round bonhomie on Friday with the main Opposition BJP giving the Government its due “where it deserved,” and the treasury benches reciprocating the gesture.
In both Houses, members buried their bitter differences on contentious issues and reached out to one another in a spirit of conciliation. In lok Sabha, an embattled Government got a rare compliment from the leader of Opposition in the lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, who praised it for eradicating polio from the country. The appreciation by the leader of the Opposition came during Question Hour when Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was replying to queries.
“We appreciate the Government for making India free from polio,” Swaraj said. The Question Hour, which functioned normally for the first time in the extended Winter Session that ended on Friday, also saw several lighter moments. When Swaraj found out that her microphone was not working, she did not complain but smiled and said the mike should not be switched off when she was praising the Government.
“We are taking with us sweet and sour memories. When history will be written, it will be recorded that the 15th lok Sabha saw the highest number of obstructions, but on the other hand it passed some of the most awaited Bills,” she said. Not to be left behind, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde played along with the “happy theme” and returned the compliments.
Highlighting the beauty of the Indian democracy, he said members from the ruling side and Opposition might vociferously air their differences over various issues in Parliament but they do not carry those sentiments outside the House. “We took decisions together on a number of subjects that have been pending for long,” Shinde said, recalling the achievements of the lok Sabha. On the Telangana Bill, he said he was “obliged” to the BJP for its support.
Eloquent in his praise for Swaraj, Shinde said: “Aap ki baat mein mithaas hai, mithai khane se bhi woh mithaas nahi hoti (the things you are saying are so sweet that they are sweeter than sweetmeats).” Wit and humour also lightened the last day of the Winter Session of Rajya Sabha with members lauding Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien for conducting the proceedings under pressure.
Thanking the Elders for compliments, Kurien asked them to observed “lakshman rekha” when putting across their point. This saw CPM leader Sitaram Yechury commenting “nobody knows lakshman rekha better than Sitaram.” BJP leader Balbir Punj then remarked that, at last, Marxists have admitted that Sita, Ram and lakshman exist. Yechury came up with a quick response and said he never mentioned Balbir, leaving the entire House in splits.
Referring to repeated disruption of the Question Hour, Kurien said the Ministers “are not unhappy” when the Question Hour gets disrupted. Joining the banter, BJP’s Venkaiah Naidu said “if members come into the Well, the Bills go to hell.” CM Ramesh of the TDP, who was in the forefront of the Telangana protests and was rapped by the Chair for jostling with the Secretary-General some days ago, offered an apology in the House.
V Maitreyan (AIADMK), who had strongly protested against the Chair for naming certain members in a House bulletin, also said in a lighter vein that he requests the Chair on behalf of the entire House to continue naming them. However, the fact remained that the 15th lok Sabha carried a dubious distinction of being “least productive” and “most disturbed’ House of Independent India, passing several key legislation, impacting lives of millions of citizens, in less than five minutes.
The outgoing lok Sabha had passed 165 Bills in the last four years as against average lok Sabhas (that finish their five-year terms) passing an average of 317 Bills, according to PRS legislative Research, a research initiative tracking Parliament. The 6th, 9th, 11th and 12th lok Sabhas lapsed before completing three years of their full five-year term, it said. Over 126 Bills were pending in the 15th lok Sabha as on January 1, 2014 with some of them being able to find their passage during the fag-end of the current lok Sabha that received more brickbats than applause.
“While 23 per cent of all the Bills passed by Parliament in the 15th lok Sabha were discussed for more than three hours, 18 per cent were passed with less than five minutes of discussion”, said PRS l Research.