Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Solving problems or creating them?' that was published in Newsband

Solving problems or creating them?

The winter session in Parliament was spent on discussing as to how the demonetisation should be structured. Just two bills were passed. Less than 1 per cent of the 330 questions listed for Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha were answered orally. The Lok Sabha looked better only in comparison, with 11 per cent. The Budget session should not suffer the same fate as winter session.

The members of Parliament should not keep on disturbing the house. It is every Indian who will be affected by their disrupting actions. The precious time meant for passing important bills which help develop the country should not be wasted. These members of Parliament were elected to solve the nation's problems, not to create.

The speakers of both the houses just could not control the situations. Even a small disruption would lead to adjournment of the session. Speakers need to be bold unlike their predecessors and should take all possible actions required for smooth functioning of the house.

It appears that both Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party strike deals favourable to them and care the least about India and Indians. It was shocking to see the he ruling party MPs, who have majority, screaming, shouting, waving placards and disrupting the house. It is surprising that deterrent action from the Speaker against unruly members and groups in the Lok Sabha who hold the house to ransom for their dictates is not on the anvil. The conduct of the MPs during the recent washout is as grave as the heinous misdeeds of those who hijack planes keeping the passengers hostage for their notorious agenda.

For some years, Parliament has become a vehicle of trading charges, walkouts and trivialisation of discussions. The trend has been continuing irrespective of the party in power. The ' decline of Parliament has made people sceptical about the representatives. They have become 'paid non-workers'. When will realisation dawn on the politicians of all hues to make use of the people’s assemblies for their rightful purposes - not for theatrics or filibustering etc.

The blinkered Opposition parties are to be blamed to a great extent for the total wash out of the Parliament. The Congress Party and some other opposition parties have acted in a highly undemocratic and disruptive manner in Parliament. The leftists want only chaos in the country. The others are no better.

These members of the Parliament who have disrupted the business of the Houses should voluntarily give up their salaries and allowances for the period the Parliamentary mechanism has been brought to a grinding halt by a pandemonium where both the ruling party and the opposition had lost their democratic consciousness to bring both the houses to a washout performance despite key bills waiting to get passed and budgetary dealings to get opened for further transaction. It seems that the deadlock will continue taking demonetisation as the centre stage and make people lose their hopes on Parliamentary democracy. Only healthy discussions will bring solutions for the lapses in demonetisation and the gates are closed now once and for all and bad precedents are set for future democracy.