This is the last week of the monsoon session of Parliament. The entire session got washed away on the issue of Manipur violence and killings.
Amidst uproar and sloganeering by the opposition in the House, the Modi government got 13-14 bills passed by voice vote. A total of 31 bills are to be passed in the session.
Of course, bills will be considered passed on technical grounds, because voice-voting is also a parliamentary method, but there could be no debate on subjects like defence, education, public concern, law and information technology, nor could parliamentary standing committees deliberate.
The ‘Delhi Services Bill’ (Ordinance) is also passed in the Rajya Sabha, this bill is debated and duly passed. Actually this bill was related to the Aam Aadmi Party government of the opposition coalition.
However, on an average only 10-15 per cent work could be done in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha due to the ‘rules and nose war’ between the ruling and the opposition.
Now the remaining proceedings in the Lok Sabha are possible only on Monday, August 7, because Tuesday-Wednesday, August 8-9, The no-confidence motion is to be discussed. Then on August 10, Prime Minister Modi will answer the entire debate.
There will be a division of votes and Parliament may be ‘prorogued sine die’ . Anyway, according to the pre-determined schedule, the duration of the monsoon session was fixed till August 11 only.
Apart from the Manipur violence, the Delhi Service Bill, the no-confidence motion and the stay on Rahul Gandhi’s sentence by the Supreme Court have been the most important issues of the monsoon session.
The surprising thing is that Prime Minister Modi was not present even once in any of the Houses. The opposition raised this question continuously.
It can be believed that the Prime Minister has a lot of domestic and international engagements, but he also took out hours for meetings with BJP-NDA MPs.
In the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh etc he also inaugurated and laid the foundation stone and also addressed election public meetings.
It’s a matter of strange that the Prime Minister not being present in the Parliament even once, during the session!
Relatively weak prime ministers like Deve Gowda and Gujral were also present in the House.
However, it is now the parliamentary obligation of the Prime Minister to be present on the no-confidence motion and ultimately to respond to the debate.
It is natural for any party to speak on the no-confidence motion, raise issues, prepare the political ground for the 2024 general elections.
The monsoon session of the Parliament is basically in the name of ‘no confidence’. The first disbelief was over the violence and killings in Manipur. The opposition did not agree on such a debate in the House, which did not end with a vote-division.
Finally the Congress had to move a no-confidence motion under Rule 198 of the Lok Sabha and Article 75 of the Constitution.
Although It knew that the overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha is still in favor of the Modi government, but the opposition wanted to give a political message to the country.
Apart from this motion, no-confidence remained on the ‘Delhi Services Bill’ (Ordinance). Almost all opposition parties, including Telangana’s BRS, were unanimous in opposing the bill. The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha. In the Rajya Sabha also, the ruling party has the support of so-called neutral parties like Andhra’s YSR Congress, Odisha’s BJD and UP’s BSP, so the bill passed there as well.
The opposition could not portray the issue as a violation of the Constitution, federal structure, judiciary etc.
In fact, the forefathers of our constitution were not in favor of forming a local government in the national capital Delhi. As per section 239AA, In the union territory of Delhi, the arrangement for an elected government and assembly was made in 1991. After that all the state governments continued to work under it.
Kejriwal’s politics has been of the poor, helpless, suffering, deprived and quarrelsome, while the central government has the right to make laws for any state. Still this bill is under consideration of the Supreme Court.
