Will Parliament Rise Above Chaos This Monsoon?

The Parliament's monsoon session begins today, and citizens should anticipate that both the ruling party and the opposition will fulfill their responsibilities during this period. Historically, however, the Parliament has often been engulfed in chaos, with accusations and counter-accusations dominating proceedings. In our parliamentary democracy, it is crucial that public trust in the Parliament remains intact. Unfortunately, the trend of sessions passing merely as formalities sends a negative signal to the populace, impacting the entire democratic system. It is essential to remember that the Parliament's accountability to the people must never be compromised. The parliamentary system operates on established rules and regulations, which both the government and the opposition must adhere to. If the accountability of both parties to the public diminishes, democracy is weakened from within.

The reason for this is that the members sitting in the Parliament are elected by the general public. Whoever and whichever party's member becomes a member of the parliament, their voice is that of the 140 crore people of the country. That is why our constitution makers put the responsibility of running the parliament smoothly on the ruling party, because the members sitting in the opposition are also elected by the general public. Therefore, the parliament is not just an arena for debate, but it is an institution that takes decisions in the interest of the country and the people. That is why the members of the opposition and the ruling party have a special responsibility to raise the issues of the people and the country in the parliament without any noise. The opposition tries to corner the government on these issues, which is its responsibility.

The responsibility of the ruling party is also fixed in the parliamentary system in such a way that it should answer every legitimate issue raised by the opposition. In this matter, if any ego fight breaks out in both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, then we cannot call it unnecessary because according to the established parliamentary traditions, the opposition has the first right on the Parliament. The reason for this is that the members sitting in the opposition camp are relatively more in contact with the common people. Therefore, the common people directly inform them about the public problems. This is the reason why one of the members of the largest party sitting in the opposition is 'bestowed' the status of Leader of Opposition and he is given facilities equal to those of a cabinet minister. The Speakers or Chairmen of both the Houses are authorized to run the Parliament. The chair of the Speaker is compared to the seat of Emperor Vikramaditya, the great jurist of Indian culture, because he is the protector of the rights of the members and he is usually elected unanimously by all the members. There is a strong provision in our parliamentary constitution to ensure that every order of his passes the test of justice. Every decision of his should be completely impartial and without any bias. The arrangement made by our constitution makers in this regard is to keep the parliament completely free from government pressure.

The speaker of Lok Sabha is not a part of the government. His orders are followed in the Parliament premises. Of course, he may win the election on the ticket of the political party of the government which has majority in the Lok Sabha, but after sitting on the chair, he becomes 'apolitical'. Earlier, it was a tradition that any member who was elected the speaker of Lok Sabha would resign from the primary membership of his party. But this practice was abandoned during the reign of late Indira Gandhi, which is still continuing. The Speaker or Chairman of the House is aware of the fact that the government is bound to answer the questions of the opposition in the Parliament. Despite this, noise and sloganeering have become a common thing in every session of the Parliament. This situation is not right because both the ruling party and the opposition are seen putting the responsibility of not functioning of the Parliament on each other. It is obvious that in a democracy, to gain the respect of the public, the opposition will want to attack the ruling party, and the ruling party will have to take the responsibility of silencing it.

But in any case, it is not right to create a deadlock in the Parliament in response to this. Because the government also appoints a parliamentary affairs minister and it is his responsibility to establish harmony between the opposition and the ruling party so that the Parliament can run smoothly. In the ongoing Sawan session from today, the opposition has announced that it will raise the issue of the Pahalgam incident and the revision of the voter list in Bihar and will focus on the statements of US President Donald Trump. The opposition would like to have a discussion in Parliament on the foreign policy of the Modi government, especially its stance on China, Pakistan and Palestine. The Speaker and the Chairman make arrangements to ensure that the government side answers every issue raised by the opposition. But we have seen that in the previous sessions, whenever the opposition brought an adjournment motion to raise its issue, it was not allowed by the Chair and this led to uproar and deadlock in the Parliament. The measures in the rules of Parliament to deal with such a situation are also multi-faceted. The only question is that the Parliament should function. In the current session, the government is bringing eight new bills and is going to pass seven old bills. The opposition will also have to pay attention to these government bills so that the Parliament can function properly. To keep democracy alive, it is very important that both the ruling party and the opposition respect each other.