New Delhi, February 13 – The intense first leg of the Budget Session of Parliament, marked by heated exchanges between the opposition and the ruling benches over the India-US interim trade deal and the unpublished memoir of former Army Chief M M Naravane, concluded on Friday.
Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha will reassemble on March 9, and the session will conclude on April 2.
During this session, the opposition also issued a notice to remove Speaker Om Birla from his position, expressing no confidence in him and accusing him of abusing his power.
This is the fourth such notice to remove the speaker, with previous attempts either failing or being unsuccessful due to lack of support. This notice will now be discussed during the second part of the session.
Meanwhile, the Speaker also stated that he would not occupy the chair until the notice for his removal is addressed.
This three-week recess period will allow parliamentary standing committees to examine allocations made in the Union Budget to various central ministries.
While the Lok Sabha saw lower productivity, the Rajya Sabha saw nearly 100% participation in discussions on both the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address and the Union Budget.
The Lok Sabha witnessed heated exchanges between both sides, particularly after Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to cite excerpts from Naravane's unpublished memoir. This led to the Prime Minister being unable to respond to the Motion of Thanks.
The Lok Sabha also saw repeated adjournments after February 2 afternoon, when the Speaker disallowed Gandhi from quoting excerpts from Naravane's unpublished memoir related to the 2020 India-China conflict.
This resulted in the suspension of eight MPs, including seven from the Congress and one from the CPI(M), for the remainder of the Budget session for disruptive behavior.
The opposition finally moved a resolution to remove Birla from his position.
A visibly upset Birla stated that he had "concrete information" that many members of the Congress might try to influence the Prime Minister, and he had requested him not to come to the House to address the Motion of Thanks.
In a significant development, the Lok Sabha passed the Motion of Thanks on February 5 without the Prime Minister's customary response, despite relentless slogans from opposition members.
In the Rajya Sabha, Prime Minister Modi, in his nearly 100-minute reply to the Motion of Thanks debate on February 5, addressed the opposition, accusing them of insulting not only President Droupadi Murmu but also the office of the President of India and the Constitution. He argued that the opposition had no right to speak on the Constitution anymore.
He also launched a scathing attack on the Congress, stating that the opposition party is unable to accept its electoral defeats and his rise, and asserted that it would never be able to "oust" him, as the blessings of crores of Indians are his "protective shield." He also accused the Congress' "first family" of "stealing" Mahatma Gandhi's surname, alleging that this was their ancestral profession.
The Rajya Sabha adopted the Motion of Thanks by voice vote, with opposition members walking out.
Later, the discussion on the Union Budget took place, and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman responded to the debate in both Houses.
Participating in the debate in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi accused the government of failing to protect India's interests while signing the interim trade agreement with the United States, a charge that Sitharaman countered, stating that it was the Congress government that sold the country at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Parliament passed a Bill to amend the Industrial Relations Code, aiming to provide legal clarity, during the first part of the session.
In the Rajya Sabha, Sitharaman asserted that India is on a robust growth trajectory with low unemployment, dismissing concerns of "jobless growth" as a relic of the UPA era. She stated that the middle class is expanding, not being suppressed, and emphasized that higher taxes paid by individuals compared to corporations do not mean they are being burdened.
According to PRS Legislative, while the Lok Sabha productivity was only 43%, that of the Rajya Sabha was 97%. It also stated that the Lok Sabha functioned for 26.6 hours while the Rajya Sabha functioned for 58.2 hours.
On Friday, the proceedings in the Rajya Sabha were adjourned at 1 pm after Zero Hour and Question Hour.
On Friday, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge raised the issue of large portions of his speech during the debate on Motion of Thanks being expunged and demanded that they be restored. He urged the chair to reconsider his decision, saying otherwise, he will release them to the public.
Chairman C P Radhakrishnan, however, said Kharge cannot question the chair, and what he was saying was not correct as whatever has been expunged from the records cannot be released outside.
The Lok Sabha saw adjournments before the House was adjourned till March 9. Earlier, the House was adjourned for one hour after opposition members raised slogans demanding the resignation of Union minister Hardeep Puri. The opposition members were also protesting against the India-US interim trade agreement.