Statement by Shri Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs

It it is both astonishing and saddening that members of the opposition, especially senior members of the Congress party, have deviated from the well-known truth about what transpired in the recently concluded session, in the Rajya Sabha. The opposition appeared committed to hampering the running of the house.  The public of our country and even history is witness to the level of noise and indiscipline the opposition has made a kind of practice to bring to the sittings of the house. In fact the opposition appears to use every means to not let the house proceedings carry on. It was painful, when some members of the opposition reduced the temple of democracy to a theatre of street fight.

The Chairman, deeply pained, reached out to the opposition to break the stalemate. The opposition came back in multiple voices which were unclear and contradictory at the same time. Duplicitousness was obvious beneath some weak conciliatory overtures. When the Chairman reached out in a concrete manner, the response proved that the intention beneath the conciliatory talk was that the House not run. Now in order to somehow create the opposite narrative, senior members of the Congress party such as Shri Jairam Ramesh by casting aspersions on the functioning of a Constitutional authority, the chairman of the Rajya Sabha, do a disfavour not only to the truth, but to democracy itself.

We would urge the members of the opposition to accept their role of opposition with grace, participate in the smooth functioning of our democracy and not make factually and morally incorrect statements.

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