Govt adjourned Houses to escape debate on inflation, farmer assurances: Congress

New Delhi, April 7

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The Congress on Thursday said the government adjourned Parliament ahead of schedule to escape a discussion on inflation and assurances to farmer organisations, jointly sought by the opposition parties.

Questioning the adjournment of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha ahead of schedule (April 8), Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Jairam Ramesh said the government had in the business advisory committee meetings of the two Houses assured discussions on bills and on inflation but ended up breaching its own commitment.”

Congress Party’s leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan said the opposition had no idea until Wednesday evening that the houses would be adjourned.

“We were told on Wednesday evening that houses will be adjourned on Thursday. We didn’t know earlier. The Government had agreed in the business advisory committee meeting to have a discussion on price rise but eventually breached its commitment. When it saw that addressing daily price rise of essential commodities could be difficult, the government simply ran away from discussions,” Chowdhury said after Kharge accused the government of disallowing discussions on inflationary pressures burdening the common man.

Congress chief whip in Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh questioned the adjournments saying two days of business had been lost.

“In Rajya Sabha the business advisory committee allocated time for bills which didn’t come. We were prepared to discuss the bills to prevent financing of activities related to weapons of mass destruction and also the Antarctica Bill. But we were surprised that the bills for which time was allocated were not brought by floor managers,” said Jairam, adding that the real reason behind adjournment was the combined opposition’s demand for a discussion exclusively on price rise, to which the government was not willing.

Jairam said his colleague Deepender Hooda gave multiple notices to discuss the state of government assurances to farmer organisations but even that was not granted.

Jairam further said while leaders of the house in the past including Thawar Chand Gehlot and late Arun Jaitley would always be present in the House, the “incumbent leader of the house was missing”.

On Congress support to bills, Kharge and Jairam said they were opposed to the Delhi municipal bodies merger bill and the Criminal Procedure Identification Bill and wanted both sent to the parliamentary committees. Jairam said it was improper to bring the Criminal Procedure Identification Bill without first bringing the laws on data privacy and DNA regulation.