NEW DELHI, Mar 8: After nearly a year, Parliament sessions are scheduled to return to their normal schedules from Tuesday.
At the time of adjourning the upper house for the day, the Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu announced that the House would meet at 11 A.M. on Tuesday and the sitting would last till 6 P.M. A similar announcement was expected from the speaker Om Birla in the Lok Sabha later in the day at the end of the first day of the second half of the budget session which resumed on Monday.
Parliament sessions were adjourned with the imposition of lockdown in March last year and during the pandemic whenever the House met, members of the two Houses started sitting in different shifts to ensure social distancing norms.
The Parliament session, however, is likely to be curtailed in view of the coming elections to five states and union territory in April-May and second half of the session may end in two weeks instead of the full month.
A Parliament official said both the ruling party as well as many Opposition leaders have requested the Rajya Sabha chairman and Lok Sabha Speaker to cut short the session as leaders of the BJP, Congress, Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Left bloc, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and many regional outfits would be busy campaigning for the election.
Sources said nearly 145 MPs have written to Speaker Om Birla for the same.
On Monday, during the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Lok Sabha, floor leaders of various parties advanced the same view. While Trinamool Congress (TMC) and DMK leaders were not present at the meet, the issue was discussed.
Birla met with some leaders one on one to get a sense of the situation and the sources said he would arrive at a decision only after ascertaining the “sense of the House” on the matter.
While the Shiv Sena said they would go with whatever the government decides on the issue, the YSRCP was one of the few parties that felt the days lost if the session is curtailed should be made up.
The Trinamool Congress, in letters addressed to both Naidu and Birla pointed to the 2011 and 2008 precedents, when the session was similarly curtailed.
In the letter to Naidu, TMC national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien said due to the polls, MPs of his party would not be able to attend the Parliament session. He cited the example of the 222nd session, which commenced on February 21, 2011, and was scheduled to conclude on April 21, 2011. However, due to Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, the House was adjourned sine die on March 25, 2011.
The second instance he provided was the 214th session, which commenced on October 17, 2008, and was adjourned early on October 24, 2008, to meet again on 10 December 2008. The session, as per the original schedule, was to continue up to November 21, 2008.
(Manas Dasgupta)
