Venkaiah takes over as RS Chairman

M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday took charge as Rajya Sabha Chairman soon after his swearing in as the Vice President with a promise to be impartial and a lament that disruption has increasingly being chosen as the first parliamentary option in legislatures.
 
Naidu arrived in the Upper House, which he represented for over 20 years and who succeeded Hamid Ansari, at 11 AM to a thunderous applause from MPs and fulsome praise from speaker after speaker. The visitor's gallery saw the presence of Naidu's family members.
 
The new Vice President got advices and suggestions from the leaders in their welcome speech as a smiling Naidu later replied in detail. Opposition leaders suggested that he should follow the practice of not allowing passage of Bills in the din and give more time to them.
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first to speak and asserted that Naidu's elevation is a tribute to the Indian democracy that people rise from humble and rural backgrounds can rise to hold highest constitutional positions.
 
"The Constitutional posts now are represented by people who are from humble background. One does not need to be from a rich family," Modi said, a remark which Congress appeared to have taken as a dig at Gandhi family.
 
Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad countered him he contributions of not only the poor, but persons like Motilal Nehru who gave up their riches for the freedom struggle should also not be forgotten. "Who can forget the contributions of Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel?" he said.
 
Finance Minister and Leader of House Arun Jaitley said the Chair has to do a balancing act of giving time to Opposition but ensuring government business to be done.
 
In his response, Naidu said people desire is that the Parliament should be the voice of sanity echoing their concerns and finding solutions to their problems. "Over the years, both the Houses of Parliament have done a reasonably good job. But somehow there is a growing concern and resentment among the people over our functioning. We need to seriously introspect over this palpable discontent with the people saying we are not doing enough still," he said.
 
"Every election gives the winner a mandate and the opposition, the responsibility of ensuring accountability of the executive. Parliamentary democracy is all about numbers. But it does not necessarily mean that we reduce the functioning of our legislatures to a mere numbers game. The play of numbers should stop with the formation of governments and thereafter, it should be resorted to only in the rarest of the rare cases," he added.