News APP

NewsApp (Free)

Read news as it happens
Download NewsApp

Available on  gplay

This article was first published 10 years ago
Rediff.com  » News » 15th Lok Sabha the MOST disrupted session in Indian history!

15th Lok Sabha the MOST disrupted session in Indian history!

Source: PTI
February 21, 2014 20:06 IST
Get Rediff News in your Inbox:

The 15th Lok Sabha will go down in the history as the most disrupted in Independent India so far including the pepper spray incident which marked a new low in parliamentary conduct.

Disruptions were the order of the day, so much so that the Lok Sabha witnessed almost a full session being washed away on the issue of the Joint Parliamentary Committee in the 2G spectrum scam. This was unprecedented.

There was also uproar galore on the demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the coal block allocation scam.

Storm over Telangana led to several unprecedented developments in the last session of the House which had 13 sittings. Even though Speaker Meira Kumar wanted a "grand finale" to the Lok Sabha it was for everyone to infer if it was so.

As many as 16 members from Seemandhra region were suspended ahead of the passage of Telangana bill. The bill to divide Andhra Pradesh tested the patience of the House, unlike any other issue in recent times. Supporters and opponents of separate Telangana were at loggerheads on the bill at the drop of a hat.

The historic bill creating the 29th state of India was passed in the last week of the last session of the Lok Sabha but after much controversies, confusion and commotion.

Almost the entire speech of Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge, while presenting the interim railway budget, was tabled in the Lok Sabha due to turmoil while the interim budget 2014-15 containing the Vote-on-account for four months was passed without a discussion.

The House witnessed four ministers trooping into the Well of the House and disrupting presentation of the interim railway budget.

The four ministers including one of Cabinet rank -- K S Rao, D Purandeshwari, K Suryaprakash Reddy and Chiranjeevi -- were protesting against the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.

Some of them held placards. Two other ministers silently supported the four by standing on their seats.

Six members of the Lok Sabha belonging to the ruling party have been expelled but the protests have refused to die down.

While protests had become routine a new tactic was adopted in the last session--holding of big placards in front of the Chair, be it the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha.

The table in the Well, which is an extension of the Chair, where the Secretary General and other officials seat, also came under increasing attack with papers being virtually snatched from them. It occurred in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. It prompted ruling party members throwing a security cordon around the top leaders inside the two Houses.

The 15th Lok Sabha also saw immediate disqualification of Lalu Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Jagdish Sharma Janata Dal-United after their conviction in the fodder scam.

Theirs was the first disqualification from the Lok Sabha after the Supreme Court struck down a provision that protects a convicted lawmaker from disqualification on the ground of pendency of appeal in higher courts.

While Prasad stands disqualified for a total of 11 years -- five years of jail term and six years subsequent to his release -- Sharma stands disqualified for 10 years -- four years in jail and six more years after that as per electoral laws.

The 15th Lok Sabha also witnessed three women adorning top posts. The head of the ruling dispensation Sonia Gandhi, Speaker Meira Kumar and Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj.

Against the backdrop of the Delhi gang rape case of December 16, 2012, Parliament also passed the Criminal Law Amendment Bill making punishment for crimes against women more stringent.

At the start of the session, Spekar Meira Kumar had struck an optimistic note about the parliamentary democracy in India, the biggest in the world. She had dismissed suggestions that the fact that the 15th Lok Sabha was the least productive in independent India showed that parliamentary democracy has failed.

"I will never say that our parliamentary democracy has failed. There are many places in the world which started off with parliamentary democracy but unfortunately they were  not able to sustain it and they failed whereas in spite of having manyfold difficulties, complexities and odds against our own parliamentary Democracy, we have succeeded.

Even though scams and scandals, including the Commonwealth Games and Adarsh Housing, led to disruptions, the House also created history by legislating landmark laws.

The Food Security bill, which seeks to provide cheap foodgrains to 67 per cent of the poor people of the country-some 80 crore people, was cleared during the tenure of this Lok Sabha.

The Land Acquisition bill, which will give a better price to the farmer for his land and also a say in the matter, was also adopted by the House.

Amid a campaign against corruption, the House also adopted the Lokpal bill, an issue which had been pending for the last four decades. The Women's Reservation bill, however, could not pass muster of the House despite being through the Rajya Sabha by the use of marshals.

The much-talked about Communal Violence Bill could not be introduced in the Rajya Sabha at the last minute due to opposition by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Get Rediff News in your Inbox:
Source: PTI© Copyright 2024 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.
 
CHINESE CHALLENGE - 2022

CHINESE CHALLENGE