Despite the ruckus in Parliament, with over 76.25 hours lost due to protests by the Opposition on various issues, the Upper House marked one of its highest productive sessions since 2014.
The Rajya Sabha Secretariat said the productivity has been decided as 28 per cent. But, in a session of 17 sittings, 19 bills were passed in the Rajya Sabha. The last year’s monsoon session, which took place after the first wave of Covid-19, saw an average of 2.5 bills passed each day.
The RS Secretariat said the total sitting time available was 102 hours, out of which only 28 hours and 21 minutes were counted as “functional time”, approximately 26% time utilised.
The Constitution amendment on OBC reservation was passed unanimously in Rajya Sabha on the last day of the monsoon session, adjourned sine die two days before its scheduled end.
The highest average time lost per day due to interruptions or adjournments since the 231st session of the Rajya Sabha in 2014, was four hours and three minutes.
While the government claimed the Opposition had pre-planned the washout of the session, it said its commitment to the cause of the people stood out; with the bills being passed despite constant disruption, intimidation of the chair, and trying to block ministers speaking during the passage of the bills.
An unruly Opposition got onto the table right before the Chair and Congress MP Pratap Singh Bajwa was seen throwing the rulebook on Tuesday after the house was adjourned in the midst of commotion.
The government said a similar situation prevailed on the last day of the monsoon session of Parliament, where unruly MPs were shouting slogans showing placards and also reportedly tried to attack marshals who were deployed for security, including a member from the Trinamool Congress who tried to strangle a marshal.
After the House was adjourned sine die, Parliamentary affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi told CNN-News18: ”There was an attempt to block the legislation and even when Leader of the House Piyush Goyal and I were trying to return to our chair after meeting, the deputy chairman MPs from Trinamool Congress tried to block our entry and we had to go back to a chair using another route.”
Opposition MPs also complained that the government was trying to intimidate, saying the number of marshals in the house was more than the number of MPs.
Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi told CNN-News18 that marshals tried to push and shove women MPs, including her. “The government was using every possible trick in the book to block the voice of the Opposition and what was witnessed today was unprecedented. Even a senior member of Parliament like Sharad Pawar claimed that he had not seen things like this in his career that expanded over 55 years.”
The Opposition finally staged a walkout from the house during the passage of the insurance bill, after which the government passed two more bills, as well.
The National Commission for Homeopathy (Amendment) Bill 2021 and National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (Amendment) Bill 2021 was passed.
Earlier in the day, Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu had broken down while speaking about the unruly attitude of Opposition MPs and their conduct in the house on Tuesday. The chairman said that he could not sleep the night before after seeing the state of affairs in the temple of democracy.
Speaking right ahead of the adjournment of the House, Leader of the Upper House Piyush Goyal said the government would seek that a committee be formed to take action against the MPs who had shamed Indian democracy by their conduct.
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