Parliament Spotlight

New Delhi, 7 April 2018

Parliament Session Over, Now To Streets?

New Delhi, April 6 (INFA): The action shifts from the two Houses of Parliament to the streets. As the Budget session of Parliament was concluded today, a number of MPs and ministers belonging to the ruling BJP and NDA stood in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament House premises holding placards and shouting slogans, as announced yesterday.  The main target of course remained the Congress, with the advice: “Come to your senses, don’t play around with Democracy”, “Save democracy, allow Parliament to function,” etc.

An alert group of Congress MPs managed to get to the hot spot in time for the photographers and cameramen to show and take their side of the version too. This group too carried placards which read “Bring back the money of the poor” “Hear the inner voice of the farmers, waive their loans,” “Stop Dalit atrocities” etc. The full-throated slogan shouting by this small group then walked for a distance.

Obviously, the fight will carry on. The ruling BJP MPs will sit on a fast on April 12 in their respective constituencies across the country to protest against the Congress for disrupting Parliament and not allowing it to function, said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar.    

Earlier in the day, in the Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan sought to get some semblance in the House as she had to read out her valedictory address and then Vande Mantram would follow. The AIADMK MPs, who have been the ones to disrupt the proceedings of the House and not the Congress as alleged by the ruling BJP, went back to their seats from the well of the House. But only to be replaced by the TDP members, wearing yellow scarves. However, they chose to stand their silently, during the address and the national song. They sought to ignore senior BJP leader L K Advani’s hand gesture asking them to go back to their seats.

She read out the statistics of how many hours the House ran, how many questions were taken up, statements made, etc. There was “shame’ being heard in the background and when she mentioned that the Finance Bill was passed, some Opposition MPs from Congress and TMC were heard saying “without discussion”. Also some asked the Speaker must mention the ‘no-confidence motion’, which was ignored. Be that as it may, during her speech this time round, many in Opposition benches had a smirk and more so when PM Modi was mentioned.

While the parties will be busy planning their blame game strategy, how much of a breather the MPs will get is anybody’s guess, as the election season is literally getting hot. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)