Parliament a place to show vocal power, not muscle power, says Kiren Rijiju

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 11

The newly appointed union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju took charge of his office on Tuesday, and in his first message said that the Parliament was a place to show vocal power and not muscle power.

Rijiju who takes over the charge of the crucial ministry from Prahlad Joshi, said the government will take everybody along in order to transact business and make laws in the interest of the country.

“Bills will have to be passed, I appeal for the support of the entire opposition,” Rijiju said after joining.

In a subtle message to the opposition, which has been repeatedly accused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of resorting to disruptions, Rijiju said that the Parliament was a place to show local power and not muscle power.

The new Parliamentary affairs minister also informed that the session of Parliament for the official swearing-in of the newly elected Lok Sabha MPs, will be held soon, but the dates have not yet been decided.

He said the government will follow the constitutional conventions in this respect by calling a short session for the swearing in which will be supervised by a pro tem Speaker, who is normally the senior most member of the Lok Sabha.

After that, the election of the Speaker to the Lok Sabha will be held. Finally, the President will address both the houses of Parliament and the short session will end with the reply of Prime Minister to the President’s address.

K Suresh of the Congress is right now, the senior most MP in the Lok Sabha.

Rijiju will have an uphill task before him of running the Parliament smoothly considering the Congress-led Opposition alliance has returned to the Lok Sabha with higher numbers.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the ruling BJP could not attain a simple majority of 272 MPs and was restricted to 240 MPs on its own. The BJP now depends on national democratic alliance partners for numbers in the Lok Sabha.

The Congress is the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha with 99 MPs. This time the Congress will also get official recognition for the position of leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, which did not get in 2014 and 2019 because it fell sort of the numbers.

Any party to be recognised for the post of leader of opposition must win 10 per cent seats of the entire strength of Lok Sabha, which is 543 and piece, the Congress was unable to mustard.

Rahul Gandhi is expected to be the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha with the recently convened meeting of the Congress Working Committee requesting him to take the plunge.

Asked to comment on the Congress demand for a JPC into an alleged stock market scam Rijiju said “these issues will be discussed later, today is not the occasion, today I want to start on a positive note.”