The Budget Session of Parliament — the second leg of which saw daily disruptions both by the ruling and opposition benches — came to a close on Thursday with Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla speaking against the frequent disruptions. While the Opposition accused the ruling side of disrupting the Houses and ensuring a washout of the session, the Government hurled the charge back at the Opposition. Law minister Kiran Rijiju said the Congress and its “gangs” were disrupting Parliament for the sake of one person — Rahul Gandhi. “Even on the last day, Congress and its friends disrupted the House. They wore black clothes and insulted Parliament again,” Rijiju said. Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said it was unprecedented — rather the first time in his long public life — to see the ruling benches not allowing the Houses to function. The initial days of the second leg of the Budget Session saw the BJP members disrupting the Houses, demanding an apology from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his remarks in London and the Opposition members pressing for a joint Parliamentary committee probe into the allegations against the Adani group. Rahul’s disqualification as a Lok Sabha MP added fuel to the fire with the Opposition becoming more aggressive. While the first part of the Budget Session saw the Rajya Sabha registering a productivity of 56.3 per cent, the second leg, which began on March 13, saw productivity plummeting to an “abysmal 6.4 per cent”. Cumulatively, the House productivity was only 24.4 per cent, Dhankhar said in his valedictory remarks. Disruptions, he said, claimed 103.5 hours. “Let’s ponder over the dismal performance of the House and find a way out,” he added. In Lok Sabha, the productivity of the first leg was 83.80 per cent, which came down to 5.29 per cent in the second leg. Cumulatively, the productivity of the House was 34.85 per cent. The House lost 96 hours and 13 minutes of its sitting time to disruptions. And the scenes were the same on the last day too. “You have lowered the dignity of the House. This behaviour is not good for the parliamentary system and the country," Speaker Birla told the protesting Congress and DMK members. They had rushed to the Well as soon as the House met. “This House is always for high level of debate and discussions. But you systematically disrupt the proceedings which is not good,” Birla said. Such behaviour, he said, is against the Parliamentary system and not good for the House or the country. “Dignity of the House has to be maintained. The House is for debate and discussions. I always give you enough opportunities to speak,” he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several ministers, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh,were present in the House. While most BJP members were wearing saffron scarves to coincide with the foundation day of the party, Congress members were wearing black as a mark of protest. Similar scenes were witnessed in the Rajya Sabha when it met, prompting the Chairman to adjourn the House till 2 PM. In his valedictory address, Chairman Dhankhar said it was a matter of concern that the paramountcy of debate, dialogue, deliberation and discussion in Parliament has yielded to disruption and disturbance. “Weaponising of politics” by stalling the functioning of Parliament, he said, is pregnant with serious consequences for India’s polity. “This is to the utter dislike of the people at large. In the public mind we as a class are subject of disdain and ridicule. We need to reflect our track record on the anvil of expectations of the people. Posterity will judge us not by the decibels generated in shouting slogans, but by our multifarious contributions towards strengthening the growth trajectory of our nation,” he said. Talking to reporters, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal blamed the Opposition for the virtual washout of the second half of the Budget Session. He said the ruling BJP was ready to drop its demand, a likely reference to its insistence on Rahul's apology, if the opposition parties reciprocated its gesture on their stand for a JPC probe into the Adani issue. “We were ready to give up our stand. But they should have also given up their stand. We had a strong stand,” he said, without directly referring to the BJP stand. He noted that Speaker Om Birla had called a meeting to defuse the logjam, but the Opposition stuck to its stand.
