Rajya Sabha was adjourned on Friday without taking up the private member resolutions, for which many Opposition MPs had prepared for days. CPI (M) MP John Brittas spoke to Liz Mathew: There were some important private member resolutions listed for today. You also had one. What happened to it? There were four private member resolutions listed and all of them were by the Opposition members. Resolutions are picked up by a lot and if they are not taken up on the day, they get lapsed. Usually, even when the House is disrupted, private member business is taken up and it happened last week too. But today, without any reason, the private member business was scrapped. What was your resolution? It was to request the government to implement the rehabilitation and reintegration package of Rs 2,000 crore submitted by the Kerala government for the Gulf returnees. How important is a private member resolution for an ordinary MP? An ordinary MP gets a very few avenues in the House. To get an opportunity in the lot to move a resolution is a remote possibility. So much of hard work is put in by the member to prepare and move it. Now what happens to this resolution? The resolution has lapsed and I would not get this chance again. So would be the case for other MPs who had got the chance today. The government says the Opposition disrupted the proceedings, thereby the MPs missed the chance? The well-established convention of allowing the private member business has been trampled upon. This is nothing stumping out the basic tenets of the very purpose of the Council of States.
