Congress, NCP, TMC members of Rajya Sabha presiding panel refuse to chair the house

Monsoon session of Parliament ends on acrimonious note

Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) members, who are part of the presiding panel in the Rajya Sabha, refused to chair the house in the monsoon session of Parliament, which ended on an acrimonious note on Wednesday.

The presiding panel or the Vice Chairman’s panel in the Rajya Sabha has six members — the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bhubaneshwar Kalita, the Biju Janata Dal’s Sasmit Patra, the Trinamool Congress’s Sukendu Sekhar Ray, the Nationalist Congress Party’s Vandana Chavan, and the Congress’s L. Hanumanthaiah.

Ms. Chavan, Mr. Hanumanthaiah and Mr. Ray did not preside over the house in this session. On August 11, when the government pushed through the controversial General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill, 2021 amidst a swarm of marshals restraining the Opposition, Mr. Patra was in Chair.

Speaking to The Hindu, Ms. Chavan said that Deputy Chairman Harivansh, who drafts the roster for the presiding officers, had slotted in the Opposition members too for the session. “I felt that it wouldn’t be morally correct to sit on the Chair while my own colleagues are agitating,” Ms. Chavan said.

On the several questions that are being raised on the Chair’s neutrality in both houses of Parliament, Ms. Chavan said that the Chair is bound by the government’s consensus. “Chair can work only with consultations with the government. If the government has decided not to allow discussion on a certain subject, then all that the Chair can do is maintain order in the house. The Chair really has very little leeway,” she said. Though at the same time, she said democracy is all about discussion and deliberation, which is not happening. The government, Ms. Chavan said, had conveyed that it wouldn’t bring in the Insurance Bill, but then decided to push it through at the last minute.

Mr. Hanumanthiah said he too felt that it would have been embarrassing for both him and the party to preside over a fractious house where the government refused to listen to the Opposition. “When you are sitting in the Chair, you have to represent the Chair, too. You cannot work as an individual MP. I told the Deputy Chairman Mr. Harivansh that I wouldn’t be able to preside because the government has refused to accept any of our demands,” he said.

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