Joining issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks against the Opposition, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said on Wednesday that he wished to remind the PM that it was his government that “is responsible for corroding Parliamentary democracy”.
In a social media post on X, he said it is the BJP that has indulged in “cheer haran (disrobing)” of Parliament and not the Opposition. “Democracy is in danger: Courtesy BJP!” he wrote.
The Congress chief went on to explain that in the last session of Parliament, as many as 14 bills were passed in just three days, by suspending an unprecedented number of 146 MPs from both Houses.
The PM, earlier in the day, slammed the Opposition MPs, saying they have become accustomed to creating disruptions in Parliament and habitually undermining democratic values during the last ten years.
Mr Kharge said 64 out of the 172 bills have been passed in the current Lok Sabha with less than an hour of discussion. As many as 61 bills were passed in the Rajya Sabha with less than an hour of discussion in the period corresponding to the 17th Lok Sabha.
He pointed out that the current Lok Sabha will finish its five-year term without a deputy speaker, a position conventionally reserved for an Opposition member. “This shows how an autocratic Modi Government is violating the Constitution, and strangulating the voice of the Opposition,” he added.
He said the 17th Lok Sabha, which is set to conclude on February 9, would have sat for the least number of days of all the Upper Houses that completed their full five-year terms. This points out how the Modi Government is hell-bent on subverting Parliamentary democracy, he added.
On the claims made by the PM of passing a record number of bills, the Congress president said in the first term of the Modi Government, 179 bills were passed by both Houses and in its second term 213 bills were passed, which are lesser than 297 bills passed under UPA-1 and 248 legislations passed under UPA-2, despite widespread disruption by the BJP.
”Data of the past two decades show that most interruptions in Parliament occurred during the 15th Lok Sabha (2009-2014) when the BJP was the principal Opposition party,” he claimed.