WINTER SESSION: NO GOVT BUSINESS ON OPENING DAY

It never happens. Parliament is beginning its 3week winter session on Friday without a single item of the government business on the opening day.

Only the private members’ business that is taken up every week on Friday afternoon is listed in the Rajya Sabha’s agenda, besides the obituary references to 10 former members and questions.

The Lok Sabha agenda says: “A list showing Government Business will be issued separately.” The House is to adjourn for the day to pay respect to the sitting members who died since last session that ended on August 11 and so there is no mention of the questions.

All sides, however, went through the routine drill on the eve of the session which will go on till January 5 – the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Parliamentary Affairs Minister called separate meetings of leaders in the evening and the opposition leaders met earlier in the day in the office of Rajya Sabha opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Even the opposition leaders deferred a decision on the strategy for the session to Monday when the actual work begins.

Not much work, however, may take place even on Monday as everyone will be glued to the TV news channels for the results of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections slated on that day.

Prime Minister Modi attended the all-party meeting called by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, urging all to help conduct business with constructive discussion on issues of national importance.

He said the constructive criticism and constructive debate in Parliament helps the government in making the policies that benefit the people.