New Delhi, [India]: Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Thursday accused the government of passing the bills without discussion in the monsoon session of parliament and said the average time spent on the bills was 10 minutes. Addressing a press conference a day after the conclusion of the monsoon session of parliament, party leaders Derek O’Brien and Saugata Roy said “39 bills were passed in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha without any debate”. “This is not how a democratic country works. The average time of passing a bill was 10 minutes and then you say that the opposition is disrupting the session?” Derek O’Brien said. “Even in 2014, 60-70 per cent of the bills were sent to a parliamentary committee for review. However, now only 11 per cent of the bills are sent to the standing committees for scrutiny,” he added. He said important issues including of Pegasus surveillance and new farm laws were not taken up for discussion despite continuous demand from the opposition. While many bills were passed without discussion, the two Houses discussed the constitution amendment bill to enable the states to have their list of socially and educationally backward classes. Answering a query, Trinamool Congress leaders said the party fully supports opposition unity even as the party’s participation in a meeting is decided by its leadership. Sugata Roy said the Trinamool Congress worked for opposition unity throughout the monsoon session. “Our leader Mamta Banerjee came to Delhi. She met Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. We left nobody in doubt about our intention for opposition unity but one must understand our position. Trinamool Congress faced the BJP alone in the West Bengal election. We are running the government alone our position is slightly different from other opposition parties,” he said. “In Maharashtra, Shiv Sena NCP and Congress are running a government together. In Tamil Nadu, DMK, CPI and CPM are part of the ruling coalition. We have no such compulsions. We are totally for opposition unity,” he added. The Rajya Sabha witnessed unruly scenes on Wednesday when the House took up the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill, 2021 for passage. The Opposition resorted to vociferous protests. They came to the well of the House and some of them were seen tearing papers. They accused the government of not following the parliamentary norms and “bulldozing” the legislation. NCP leader Sharad Pawar later alleged that “women MPs were attacked” and “more than 40 men and women were brought into the House from outside to control the MPs”. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said that opposition members “manhandled marshals” in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday and said their behaviour during the session was a “black spot in the history of Indian democracy”.
