Trinamul Congress Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien and DumDum MP Saugata Roy today lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah for their absence from both the Houses of Parliament
during the Monsoon session.

Addressing a Press conference, both the MPs asked seven pertinent questions to Modi-Shah regarding the operating procedure of the Monsoon session of the Parliament. O’Brien cited examples of two former Prime Ministers HD Deve Gowda and Dr Manmohan Singh who actively participated in the discussions.

“The opposition wanted a discussion on internal security, Pegasus but the government did not allow it,” he said, adding that both the PM and Union home minister are responsible for disruption in the House for their “arrogance and hooliganism for not coming to the House even once to hear discussion on issues like internal security and Pegasus”.

Roy said, “We also wanted a debate on farmers’ protests but even that did not happen. Why?” He pointed out that 400 farmers have died so far while protesting against the “draconian” farm laws and he claimed that TMC and other opposition parties tried to raise the issue which was throttled.

O’Brien said that in all 38 Bills were passed in both Houses without any debate. “This is not how a democratic country works. The average time of passing a bill was 10 minutes and then you say that the opposition is disrupting the session?” O’Brien said.

Roy claimed that in 2014 “60-70 per cent of the Bills were sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committees but only 11 per cent of the Bills are sent for scrutiny.”

“Ordinance is used for passing extremely important Bills on an emergency basis. In the first 30 years since our Independence, only one ordinance was used for every 10 Bills and now almost four ordinances are used for every 10 Bills. The BJP government is treating the emergency legislation to be normal legislation,” alleged O’Brien.

“The PM is avoiding the Parliament. Even Manmohan Singh was never that comfortable with the Parliamentary system but he used to answer our questions on a designated day,” Roy said. However, during the Modi regime, he has never answered any questions. This is hooliganism,” Roy alleged.