NEW DELHI, 24 August 2005 — Both the houses of Parliament were rocked yesterday by uproarious scenes with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanding the dismissal of Bihar Governor Buta Singh and the sacking of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Blaming the Bihar governor for having “interfered” in the functioning of the Railway Ministry by writing a letter to Lalu requesting the transfer of a railway employee to a lucrative position, the BJP and its supporters sought his removal. In the Lok Sabha, BJP leader V.K. Malhotra alleged Lalu had claimed that Buta was his appointee. Lalu’s Rashtriya Janata Dal party colleagues blamed the BJP members for “misleading” the house.
The same issue was raised by BJP members S.S. Ahluwalia and his party colleague Ravi Shankar Prasad in the Rajya Sabha.
Both the houses were witness to heated exchanges between Lalu supporters and BJP members. In the Rajya Sabha, agitated members rushed to the aisle and then to the well from where they shouted anti-Lalu slogans.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat tried preventing the disruption of the question hour. He said as the opposition members had not given in writing their demand for suspension of the question hour, he could not permit them to raise the issue. As the opposition continued shouting slogans for around 30 minutes, Shekhawat adjourned the house till 12 noon.
When the upper house reassembled, the government rejected the opposition demand for a discussion on the “Lalu Prasad-Buta Singh” controversy. Home Minister Shivraj Patil said that opposition notice on the issue was not substantive in nature. A 14-day notice had to be given for the discussion, Patil said.
Dismissing the stand taken by opposition on Lalu’s reported claim about Bihar governor being his nominee, Patil said: “Everybody knows about the procedure of a governor’s appointment (which is made by the president) and there is no need to discuss it in the house.” On apprehensions voiced by Ravi Shankar Prasad about elections in Bihar, Patil said: “Elections are conducted by the Election Commission which is an independent constitutional authority. We will ensure that the elections are held in a proper manner.”
In the Lok Sabha, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee refused to admit the opposition’s notice for suspension of the question hour to discuss the “Lalu Prasad-Buta Singh” controversy.
Without any business being conducted in the earlier session, the house was adjourned till 2 p.m. The house reassembled to discuss the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill 2004. When the Lok Sabha reassembled, the modified bill assuring 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in rural areas was passed by voice vote.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday he was confident that Parliament would pass a bill to reserve 33 percent of parliamentary and state legislature seats for women despite opposition from several quarters. His comments came a day after deputies fought tooth-and-nail in Parliament to oppose the draft legislation.
“We are building consensus on the issue of reserving 33 percent of seats in Parliament and state legislatures for women and I am confident that we will succeed,” Manmohan told a national women’s conference in New Delhi.
Successive Indian governments have failed to make the Women’s Reservation Bill law since it was first put forward in 1996 because of stiff opposition from politicians. But Manmohan said he was confident of ending the logjam.
He said increasing female representation on village bodies was a signal to the political establishment to make way for women in state legislatures and Parliament.
“A new army of empowered women has come forward to participate in governance at the community level and the time has come for us to scale this experiment up to the national level,” he said.
