New Delhi, Feb 2: Speaking on frequent disruptions in both Houses, Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday urged members to “conduct themselves in a manner befitting the trust the citizens have in parliamentary democracy.”
“In the last winter session this House lost 52.10 per cent valuable sitting time due to disruptions and forced adjournments. During the preceding Monsoon Session, the loss of functional time was as high as 70.40 per cent. This trend of disruption is highly disturbing,” said Naidu.
The Chairman said the voter participation has increased from 45 per cent in the first Lok Sabha election to the highest 67 per cent in 2019 and even higher in the case of state assemblies “which proves that the citizens of the country continue to impose their faith in democracy”.
“In this historic year, the need of the hour for the 5,000 MPs, MLAs and MLCs is to resolve to return to the people the favour they have been relentlessly doing by nurturing our democracy. The only way of doing so is to conduct ourselves in a manner befitting the trust the citizens still have in our parliamentary democracy.”
Calling the ongoing session significant, Naidu said it was happening almost in the midst of the country’s 75th year of hard-fought independence. “The sole objective of the long drawn freedom struggle was swaraj in which people are the masters of their destiny through parliamentary institutions,” he said.
The Chairman said that any Budget Session offers a broad guidance to the course of economic progress over the next financial year. “The Budget Session assumes added significance as the nation is collectively keen to lift the national economy out of the impact of the Covid pandemic for the last two years,” he said.
He said the uncertainties on account of the pandemic “reminds all of us our responsibility to do the needful to overcome this challenge and secure the socio-economic transformation of our country which is a work in progress”. This is the 6th Session being held since the outbreak of the pandemic, he said. Naidu rejected notices submitted by Opposition leaders demanding suspension of business to discuss the Pegasus spyware issue. “Some people have given notices under rule 267, I have not admitted, you have time for discussion on Budget… The same notices came during the last session also,” he said.
