For another week, Parliament’s functioning remained under strain, giving little evidence the Government and the Opposition had made fruitful efforts to let the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha resume their normal look, discussing the Budget for which they had resumed their sittings.
Like the first week, the second week, too, had large number of members shouting slogans in front of the presiding officers, and the Houses adjourned abruptly. Without an appearance of order, the Lok Sabha disposed of in half-an-hour the essential financial business, clearing the Finance Bill, 2018, and two related Appropriation Bills for 2018.
While the Opposition remained alienated on several issues, the Government lost an ally, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), on the issue of special status for Andhra Pradesh, for which its members were holding placards in both Houses since the resumption of the Budget Session.
The TDP having 16 members in the Lok Sabha, and its Andhra Pradeh rival, YSR Congress Party, with its nine-member strength in the House, gave notices for a no-confidence motion against the Government.
A no-confidence motion notice requires signatures in support by at least 50 members of the House. Although the Government’s majority in the Lower House was not in doubt, the fate of the notices would be known only next week. On Friday, they could not be taken up to ascertain if they had the required backing.
Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said there must be order in the House for the formality but there was no order.
As the Question Hour began on Wednesday, the Speaker said the sittings of the House were being disrupted continuously for the past few days.
Keeping in view the urgency involved in transaction of the financial business, guillotine in respect of Demands for Grants 2018-19, scheduled to be held at 5 o’clock that day was being brought just after the official papers were laid. The papers were laid shortly after noon.
The Speaker took up all Cut Motions in the demands for grants together, and they were negatived in the voting. In 30 minutes from 12.04 p.m., 99 demands for grants of Central Ministries and the Vice-President’s Secretariat, along with the Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bills were passed, after incorporating official amendments.
The Speaker put the demands and the Bills moved by finance minister Arun Jaitley, one after another, and they were approved by Ayes from the Treasury members instantaneously, while sections of the Opposition were shouting slogans in front of the Speaker’s seat, or were staging a walk-out, protesting at the passage of the vital business without discussion.
The same afternoon, after lunch-break, the Rajya Sabha was conveyed the message from the Lok Sabha about the passage of the two Appropriation Bills and the Finance Bill. No discussion could take place on these Money Bills last week.
Even if they are not discussed or approved by the Upper House, they would be treated as passed by the House in 14 days from the receipt of the Lok Sabha message.
Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu regretted on Friday that the House had gone without doing any business in the past two weeks. He said “people are getting disillusioned, distressed that we are meeting, we are greeting, not doing anything.”
Parliament, he said, was meant to discuss, debate and decide. At the end of the day, he said, “we have to go by the consensus or by the majority of the House.” He appealed to the members to restore normalcy before he took “some extreme view about the same.”