From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: After a washout of Parliament’s winter session for a fortnight owing to the Opposition pandemonium in both the Houses on the government refusing to discuss the price rise, a debate is listed on Monday at the end of the Lok Sabha’s agenda on the subject under Rule 193 on the motion of Shiv Sena’s Vinayak Raut and Manish Tewari of the Congress.
The debate is still not on the agenda of the Rajya Sabha, but the Opposition may end the impasse in both the Houses on it ultimately succeeding to force discussion on the price rise. The Lok Sabha motion is, however, silent on the recent GST hike on the food items that agitated the Opposition.
There is, however, no uncertainty whether the spat between the ruling BJP and the Congress continues on Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury describing President Droupadi Murmu as “rashtrapatni” while talking to the media early this week, though he has apologised to the President in a letter sent to her on Friday after not getting an appointment from her to personally apologise.
Speaker Om Birla has to also decide on Chowdhury’s protest at Union Women and Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani not affixing Mrs or Smt before Murmu while raising the issue of insult to her. Chowdhury has also sought expunction off the remarks by Irani and other BJP members against Congress President Sonia Gandhi by dragging her name in his “slip of tongue.”
Rajya Sabha Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge has also written to Chairman M Venkaiah to delete all references to Sonia Gandhi by Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal as per the practice not to make allegations against the members of the other House.
All these matters may still derail the proceedings on Monday if the ruling BJP members still want to prevent the debate on the price rise.
Meanwhile, here are, however, only eight more sittings left in the monsoon session before it ends on August 12. There are two holidays in Parliament on August 9 on account of Moharram and on August 11 for Raksha-Bandhan (Rakhi).
