29 MPs move 200 amendments to President's address in Lok Sabha

Over 200 amendments to the President's Address have been submitted with the farmers' issue and Covid-19 together accounting for around 30% of the amendments.

Twenty-nine MPs from 11 parties, including Congress, Trinamool Congress and the Left, have submitted over 200 amendments in Lok Sabha to the President's Address with the farmers' issue and Covid-19 together accounting for around 30% of the amendments.

Interestingly, 10 of the 29 MPs who submitted amendments were from Kerala. Altogether, 14 were from Congress.

In Rajya Sabha, 16 MPs have submitted 118 amendments to the President's Address that kick-started the Parliament's Budget Session with around two dozen "regretting" the omission of mention of three contentious farms laws and protest by farmers against it.

Around 30 of the 204 amendments submitted in Lok Sabha are related to "regretting" the omission of farmers' agitation, the violence at Red Fort during tractor rally on Republic Day, minimum support price and other issues in the President's Address.

Another around 30 were related to Covid-19 management and migrant labourers' plight during the lockdown. There were also a number of amendments related to jobs, job-loss and unemployment as well as on MNREGA.

Read | 50 MPs participate in Prez address debate in Rajya Sabha; PM to reply on Monday morning

The leakage of WhatsApp messages of journalist Arnab Goswami with former Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) CEO Partho Dasgupta also figured among the amendments. The manipulation of TRP ratings also found space in the list.

From Congress, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Shashi Tharoor, Adoor Prakash, Hibi Eden and TN Prathapan were among the 14 MPs who submitted the amendments. Two each of CPI(M) MPs -- P R Natarajan and A M Ariff -- and CPI (K Subbarayan and M Selvaraj) and RSP's NK Premachandran also submitted amendments.

MPs from Trinamool Congress (2 MPs), DMK (2), NCP (1), AAP (1), BSP (1) and Shiv Sena (1) also submitted amendments.

One of the amendments submitted by Premachandran and Ariff said "regret that there is no mention in the Address about providing a solution to the issues of agitating farmers and the need to provide a special package for them and minimum support price on the agricultural products."

Another by Congress' Adoor Prakash said, "but regret that there is no mention in the Address about countrywide agitation of farmers against the farm laws."

Eden's amendment regretted that there is no mention of the widespread protests by farmers against the farm laws, alleged police atrocity on the farmers in Delhi and the "sad loss of life" of a protesting farmer.

Besides those on farmers agitation and other issues, Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Chowdhury also submitted an amendment on the India-China border stand-off saying "but regret that there is no mention in the Address about the alleged occupation of more than 100 km of Indian territory land by China in the last two years". (