M A I N   N E W S

Parliament remains paralysed for the third day in a row
Logjam over price rise, Telangana
Aditi Tandon/TNS

New Delhi, November 24
On a day when Parliament seemed set for some serious business with the government and the Opposition reaching a reasonable understanding on the rules to raise the critical issues of inflation and black money, both Houses were adjourned for the third consecutive day without transaction of any business.

In the Lok Sabha, Speaker Meira Kumar disallowed adjournment motions moved by CPM’s Ramchandra Dome, SP’s Shailendra Kumar, RJD’s Raghuvansh :Parasad Singh and TDP’s NN Rao who wanted to discuss price rise under rules that entailed voting.

Ruling that a notice of adjournment can not be moved on a matter already listed in the House agenda for discussion, she disallowed the adjournment motion and said that the Rule 193 discussion (which allows matters of significant public importance to be discussed) will be taken up as listed in the business schedule of the House.

The debate was scheduled for 2 pm after the first surprise adjournment of the day by a handful of Congress members from Telangana, who joined TRS’ K Chandrashekhar Rao and Vijayashanti. The latter two sat on the floor of the Lok Sabha to register protest and caused the Speaker to adjourn the Question Hour.

At 12 noon when the House resumed, some business was expected to be transacted but a second adjournment came, courtesy the same set of Telangana MPs from the Congress and the TRS. At this moment, the Speaker, however, said that the House would take up the inflation discussion at 2 pm.

The Speaker’s announcement followed a consensus reached on inflation debate between the Opposition and the government in a meeting held in her chamber after the House saw the first adjournment this morning. Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj later said that the BJP, which had moved an adjournment motion on black money today, agreed to the demand of Left parties and other leaders to debate price rise first. “The entire Opposition and the government was in agreement on discussing price rise,” Sushma said.

However, when the House reassembled to participate in the listed debate, Congress’ Telangana MPs were again on their feet and no Cabinet minister was present to contain them. Congress leaders, sitting in the House, also didn’t tame their friends into letting the House run. Similar scenes were witnessed in the Rajya Sabha which saw adjournment for the day. “There was complete failure of floor management,” Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in the RS said later with both the Left and the BJP blaming the government for disruptions. “Who is the beneficiary of repeated disruptions? It is the Congress. Today, there was no attempt by the government to pacify the agitating Telangana MPs from their own party,” Basudeb Acharia, Leader of CPM in the Lok Sabha said. The Left also questioned the Speaker’s decision to convert their adjournment motion on inflation into a Rule 193 discussion. CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said, “How can you reject an adjournment motion saying it is not recent and urgent enough.”