House calendar chronicles history
NEW DELHI: If you want to know who holds the record of being the Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha for the longest duration, or, how many Rajya Sabha chairpersons became Indian’s President—just flip the pages of a new calendar.
Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu released the official calendar of the House on Wednesday that features, apart from photographs and dates, as many as 65 leaders of different parties, in a rare show of India’s multi-party polity.
“The Calendar is a chronicle of political times since 1952, said Naidu.
Possibly for the first time, each page contains the photos of not just the Rajya Sabha chairman, but also the then deputy chairman, leader of the House and Opposition, amid others.
It also contains fascinating, lesser-known facts such as the Upper House had no Leader of Opposition for 34 of last 66 years.
Naidu’s efforts to hail all his predecessors and important leaders come amid a raging political fight between the BJP and the Congress over the government’s efforts to highlight selected national icons and appropriation of their legacy.
Naidu, who has a challenging task of running Rajya Sabha amid growing political divisions said during the release event, “Nation can’t fulfill its quest without a shared parliamentary agenda.”
Finance minister Arun Jaitley, Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad quipped that the calendar is “educative even for senior membes of the House”, said a official press note.
A wide array of 65 leaders including 13 Chairmen, 12 Deputy Chairpersons including three women, 26 Leaders of the House and 14 Leaders of the opposition from different parties since the inception of the Upper House in 1952 are featured in the calendar.
Naidu also added, “While there is a broad degree of commonality over rapid economic growth as an instrument of bettering the lives of the people, there is much more to the progress of our nation. Parliamentary institutions can’t be held captive to the competing agendas. The civility of proceedings in parliamentary institutions is a certain barometer of an aspiring nation finding it’s feet and fulfilling it’s quest”.