JOIN USDebate, discuss and decide: Venkaiah Naidu's tenure as Rajya Sabha chairman
"Let the government propose, let the Opposition oppose and let the House dispose," is the only way forward in a democracy. The members should resort to the three-D mantra: discuss, debate and decide, and avoid the other 'D' - disruption, said M Venkaiah Naidu, the 13th Vice President of India, whose term is near its end.
The veteran parliamentarian, who took the chair of the Rajya Sabha chairman, was a staunch believer in cooperation between the ruling party and the Opposition, and during his 5 years in office, presided over multiple historic Bills, all the while braving disruptions in the House and a low initial productivity.
His first major Bill as the Rajya Sabha chairman was the Bill to withdraw Article 370 and remove Jammu and Kashmir's special status.
In the morning of the day, Naidu’s wife had forced him to sit in the puja room as she prayed, and doctors checked his vitals before he left for the Rajya Sabha, Hindustan Times reported.
The proceedings of the House that day, as expected, were raucous. Strong protests by Opposition members against the Bill had led to a PDP member tearing his clothes as other members tore copies of the Constitution, prompting Naidu to have them physically removed. The Bill eventually passed and Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into 2 Union Territories.
A year later, the three controversial Farm Bills were passed under his chairmanship without any debate, and when the protests against the Bills took the country by storm, the repeal was passed in 2021, also without debate.
During his early days, Naidu also had to contend with low productivity, as numbers fell to as low as 26 per cent in 2018. Since then, however, productivity steadily improved, with productivity going as high as 105 per cent. Overall, the productivity of the House stood at 70 per cent under his chairmanship.
Another major challenge Naidu faced was ensuring smooth functioning of the House in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, even as he lobbied to increase the use of Indian languages and new technology in Parliament.
Naidu also exhorted people to look for four qualities in prospective representatives during elections. "If people want to give someone a job of responsibility... in the panchayat, as an MLA and or as an MP, they should elect those having the four qualities of character, calibre, capacity and conduct," he said, adding that those who possess a set of other four Cs - cash, community, caste and criminality - should be shunned.
(With agency inputs)