New Delhi: Communist Party of India (CPI) Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam on Tuesday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressing dissatisfaction over the length of the recently announced Monsoon session of Parliament.
‘I write this letter to express my disappointment over the length of the recently announced Monsoon session of Parliament, 2023. As per the announcement made by the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, the Monsoon Session 2023 will commence on July 20, 2023, and will conclude on August 11, 2023’, Binoy Viswam said in the letter. ‘Effectively, Parliament is supposed to sit only for 17 days in the Monsoon session which is unfortunately little given the multitudes of issues and legislations demanding urgent attention of the government and lawmakers’, he said.
The CPI lawmaker went in to add that it is being observed by democratically-minded people and lawmakers alike that the duration of Parliament sittings is coming down drastically to the disadvantage of our democratic parliamentary Republic. ‘While the first Lok Sabha had 677 sittings divided among 15 sessions, the 16th Lok Sabha which brought you to majority had only 331 sittings divided by 17 sessions’, he said. ‘Duration of Parliament sessions and the number of sittings have more than halved since the 1st Lok Sabha. While the average sittings per session for the 1st Lok Sabha were 45 days, it came down to a mere 19 days during the 16th Lok Sabha. The current 17th Lok Sabha is already forecasted to have the lowest sitting days for a full five-year Lok Sabha with only 230 sitting days till the last budget session’, he added.
Viswam also alleged that beyond sitting days, the decline in the quality of debate on critical issues is also another unfortunate ‘feature’ of the NDA government. ‘The Lok Sabha passed five bills in under an hour in Monsoon Session 2021. Issues of paramount importance like the Farm Laws and Labour Codes were cleared amid chaos. It appears that the Parliamentary majority of the BJP is being abused to make the Parliament ineffective and redundant’, he said. ‘You have referred to our country as ‘Mother of Democracy’ several times. In this context, I urge you to take immediate steps to strengthen parliamentary democracy in the country. It must be ensured that Parliament functions for at least 100 days in a calendar year to give sufficient attention to the needs of our vast and diverse country. I hope this demand will find your attention’, he added.
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