New Delhi, April 29
Congress MPs have been pulled up by party President Sonia Gandhi for absenting themselves from Parliament.
Taking strong exception to the lack of quorum in Parliament, she has conveyed her displeasure to the Parliamentary Affairs Ministers and party whips and asked them to ensure that members and ministers devote sufficient time to Parliament.
She is also expected to personally meet the MPs in batches from Monday to tick them off and tell them to take their parliamentary duties more seriously. Lok Sabha leader Pranab Mukherjee has already written to all ministers urging them to attend Parliament regularly.
Although attendance in the two Houses has been fairly thin during the debates, the matter assumed greater urgency in the past three days when the Opposition boycotted proceedings and it was left to the Treasury to ensure a quorum. Today, for instance, the government was put to great embarrassment when the post-lunch session in the Lok Sabha had to adjourned for half-an-hour for lack of quorum.
What made matters worse is that there were very few Congress members in the House when the all-important Finance Bill was being discussed. On the other hand, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and his party MPs were present in full strength.
It is not MPs alone who have been playing hooky. Ministers have also not been attending their roster duties. Consequently, Lok Sabha Leader Pranab Mukherjee today shot off a letter to all ministers reminding them to attend Parliament regularly and to ensure their presence on days when questions on their ministries are to be taken up.
Just yesterday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to apologise to the Rajya Sabha when Labour Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao was not present to answer questions about his ministry.
The problem of absenteeism has been cropping up despite repeated reminders to the MPs and ministers. In order to ensure better attendance, MPs were also assigned roster duties like the ministers in this session but to little avail.
In fact, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and the chief whips in the two Houses have written several letters to the members requesting their presence during the proceedings.
Mr V. Narayanswamy, Congress chief whip in the Rajya Sabha, had written to the members only a week ago requesting them to participate effectively in the discussions and also to be present in the House as per their roster duties. In fact, they were urged to remain in Parliament throughout the day.
