Washout in RS, LS sees some work

Vibha Sharma & Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 8

With just four more working days to go before the 2016 winter session ends, the Lok Sabha saw some movement with the government managing to clear some legislative business in the House despite the prevailing din. In the Rajya Sabha though, matching the lung power of a higher-in-number Opposition parties, the Treasury Benches stood firm.

Today, they did not allow Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad to have his say unhindered, as he and other Opposition leaders have been managing to do in the past few days. However, Azad did manage to castigate Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his demonetisation move.

Meanwhile, buoyed by the clearance of the Second Supplementary Demands for Grants (General) for 2016-17 and Demands for Excess Grants (General) for 2013-14 by the Lok Sabha, government functionaries claimed that sufficient legislative work would be seen in the last week of the winter session that ends December 16.

Some RS leaders of the Congress indicated that they may allow the government to clear essential legislative business next week.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi called the demonetisation move a “disaster”. He said the PM “so-called bold decision” proved to be a foolish one as it had “devastated” the country.

Hitting back in the Lok Sabha during short discussion on second batch of supplementary demand for grants, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reiterated the BJP-led government’s commitment to fight corruption.

“I should clarify that PM Narender Modi has said we will normalise the situation by December 30. We will try and minimise the hardship faced by the people. India was today poised to become the fastest growing economy of the world against the grim scenario about two-and-half years ago when it was considered as one of the five fragile economies, he said.

After the admonishment by veteran LK Advani yesterday, LS Speaker Sumitra Mahajan appeared sterner when she cautioned the Opposition and ministers for hindering the functioning of the House today. Advani was also present for a brief period today.