New Delhi | Ramakant Chaudhary: After a year-and-a-half that witnessed truncated and missing sittings for legislations owing to the Corona-struck situation, the Parliament will on July 19 kick-start its full Monsoon Session with new and expanded council of ministers after the nation has struggled to come out from the apocalyptic situation caused by the monstrous second Covid wave and is heading to face the probable third wave of the pandemic.
Amidst war of words on Covid management and the economy of the country between the government and Opposition for political calculus on the pitch of coming state elections in 2022, what would be the fate of the Monsoon Session? Will it go for democratic debate or destructive discourse? Will the both sides punch and counterpunch their narratives on building alliance and projecting leadership for the battle of 2024? Only time will tell, but law abiding citizens and taxpayers have pinned high hopes on the Parliament session as they have faced nightmarish situations caused by the Covid pandemic that claimed scores of lives and many of them have been rendered jobless due to lockdown.
In the aftermath of the second wave, the price rise and political blame games are rubbing salt into wounds of people who are yet to come to terms with post-Covid sufferings. This session is quite significant for common people. Debates, disruptions and walkouts are the part of parliamentary proceedings that give fine tuning to the legislative outputs for the benefit of people. Notably, both the treasury and Opposition benches have constitutional obligations to converge on the points that could make legislations for safeguarding the sovereignty and bringing prosperity for the nation. The statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the Parliament precinct reminds lawmakers across the aisle of the House that integrity and fair play should be maintained in the temple of democracy for constructive parliamentary proceedings and legislative work.
Buoyed with assembly election results and multiple efforts made to rope in non-NDA parties to flock together, the Opposition seems all set to question the government on a range of issues, including the Covid-19 pandemic situation, delay in vaccination programme, farm protests, economy, price rise, Rafale aircraft acquisition, border aggressions and Afghan issues, the treasury benches started an outreach exercise for coordination and smooth functioning of the House. The government appears confident with its new council of ministers to fend off any attack from the Opposition during the 19-day session.
The all-party meeting was called by the government on Sunday for smooth functioning of the monsoon session that would begin from tomorrow. In the meeting, the opposition parties raised crucial issues of farm bills, price rise and demanded that the government bring in reservation for OBCs in NEET. Appealing to floor leaders for allowing smooth functioning of the House, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured that suggestions would be taken into account and the government would discuss all issues.
Opposition MPs have been raising the issue of lack of scrutiny of bills by Parliamentary committees. During the meeting with Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday, the Opposition members also underlined the need for more scrutiny of bills by parliamentary committees. He urged the government and Opposition parties to ensure a productive session. According to a report, 60 percent of the bills were sent to the Parliamentary committees for scrutiny during the UPA-1 and 71 percent during UPA-2. While during the current ruling establishment, the percentages of bills referred to the committees was 25 percent (NDA-1) and 11 percent (NDA-2).
According to the Lok Sabha website, a total of 23 bills are slated to be tabled in the lower house during the session. Of these, 17 will be new bills while six have already been introduced. Key bills among them to be tabled the monsoon session are: The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill, 2021; The Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Amendment Bill, 2021; The Chartered Accountants, the Cost and Works Accountants and the Company Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 2021; The Limited Liability Partnership (Amendment) Bill, 2021; The Cantonment Bill, 2021; The Indian Antarctica Bill, 2021; The Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2021; The Indian Institute of Forest Management Bill, 2021; The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021; The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (Amendment)Bill, 2021; The Indian Marine Fisheries Bill, 2021; The Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Amendment) Bill, 2021; The Inland Vessels Bill, 2021; The Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2021; and The Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021.
The monsoon session of parliament will continue till August 13. The two Houses will meet daily from 11 am to 6 pm with a one-hour lunch break. Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will hold the sessions simultaneously with minimum presence of officials, staff and media to ensure social distancing. Since the pandemic began, three sessions of Parliament were curtailed while the winter session last year had to be cancelled. The Monsoon session usually starts in the third week of July and concludes ahead of 15 August.
(Ramakant Chaudhary is a political-social commentator and journalist who has worked with The Times of India, Hindustan Times (Mint), Dainik Jagran Group, The Pioneer and The Political and Business Daily. The views expressed are personal.)
