Opp opens new front with Speaker

The Speaker was to lead the Indian delegation to the prestigious Commonwealth Parliamentary Association session which begins on August 30. But the mantle was passed on to Deputy Speaker A.S. Atwal, as the Parliament will be in session then.

The Lok Sabha Secretariat officials pointed out that the Speaker could not agree to postpone the Budget Session any further as re-scheduling would not only mean loss of time, it would also involve a huge loss to the exchequer.

In fact, sources said, the Speaker received the proposal for deferring the session ‘‘informally’’ through the Lok Sabha Secretariat. Neither the Government, nor the Opposition conveyed their sentiments to him directly.

After the delay in forming parliamentary committees because of the Opposition boycott, the BJP reportedly proposed to the Centre that the session be deferred by a week to allow the committees more time to go through the budgetary proposals.

Sources said the suggestion was made to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad when he met BJP Deputy Leader V.K. Malhotra to resolve the dispute over chairmanship of three high-profile committees. While the Government was not unwilling to go along with the Opposition’s idea, sources said Azad made it quite clear that the session cannot be extended beyond the September 3 schedule.

What, perhaps, upset the Opposition MPs more is the fact that the Speaker asked them to work extra hours to cope with their parliamentary committee work. The MPs get handsome allowances for their committee work in the inter-session period, which they cannot avail of when the session is in progress.