Venkaiah pitches for making Parl disruption poll issue

Expressing serious concern over repeated disruptions in the legislative proceedings of Parliament, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday made a strong pitch for making “disruptive dis-functional tendency” an election issue.

He came down came down heavily on the leadership of parties for deciding in advance to disrupt Parliament proceedings.

Addressing a function organised here to release a compilation of his speeches, Naidu said “It is unfortunate that when I meet leaders in the morning, some of them tell me: Sir today house cannot function normally because an issue has cropped up and we have instructions from the leaders.
It is indeed a sad commentary of our system if the political leadership take this kind of approach.”

Naidu recalled that the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad has often shared “his concerns” with him about the state of affairs.

"But perhaps there are so many cross-currents that are at work. Ultimately, we all seem to be passive spectators or tacit contributors to this theatre of declining standards,” he said.

Naidu, who is also chairman of the Rajya Sabha, expressed dismay over the adoption of the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address without any debate in the Upper House “due to disruptions.”

“It is customary and constitutional propriety that each member of Parliament adopts a Motion of Thanks for such an address. But in Rajya Sabha, for over a week no concern was shown to do so despite I appealed several time. Finally, on the last day of the session, the motion was adopted without debate,” he said.

What could have been a platform for discussing “all the burning issues” became a platform of “confrontation and disruption,” he underlined.

“It is very unfortunate that our legislatures instead of becoming forums of debate being reduced to disruptive platforms. This growing tendency is a clear negation of the vision of our constitution makers in a way. It is apathy towards hopes and aspirations of the people. It is an utter disregard for the people's mandate. It is betrayal of the people's faith in these pillars of democracy,” he said.

Addressing the event, former president Pranab Mukherjee also highlighted the need for “continually improving the parliamentary debates, the laws and rules of the legislatures.”

He also underlined that poverty and unemployment continue to be “central challenges” confronting the policymakers.

“The marginal farmers landless labourers and casual workers are the worst sufferers of these deprivations,” he said. He said there was need for directing the government efforts towards “a holistic policy with focussed strategy” for its implementation.