OPPOSITION SLAMS MOTIONS OVER NO QUESTION HOUR IN BOTH HOUSES

NEW DELHI: Both Houses of Parliament on Monday adopted motions to scrap the Question Hour and the private members’ business during the monsoon session that is being held amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Moving the motion in the Rajya Sabha, parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi said the session is being held in extraordinary circumstances and the House resolves that starred questions and private members’ business may not be brought before it for transaction during the sittings.

During the Question Hour, which is the first business of the day, members are allowed to ask questions concerning public interest from the ministers.

Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and Trinamool Congress member Derek O’Brien opposed the motion.

“In a democracy, the government is answerable to the people through Parliament...their [people’s] representatives ask the questions on their behalf. It is a great opportunity which the people have been deprived of. Instead of four hours, we could have worked for five hours and one hour could have been dedicated for the question hour,” Azad said. Opposing the motion, O’Brien said, “We have lost 18 hours of question hour there is no other place available for us to ask the ministers questions... It happened only during the Chinese incursion of 1962 and emergency maybe.” But Joshi said before arriving at this decision, deputy leader in the Lok Sabha and defence minister Rajnath Singh spoke to almost all leaders of political parties. “In the last five years, 60% of Question Hour in Rajya Sabha and 40% in Lok Sabha was wasted,” he added. “There are so many ways to question the government and we are not running away from discussion... ,” the minister said.