Demeaning Parliament

It now clearly appears that our members of Parliament have lost sense of courtesy, discipline and accountability. There is free for all inside the Parliament. MPs behave as if they owe no responsibility to the people who have sent them here. They are only denigrating all democratic values and importance. They demean Parliament to the lowest level. Parliament is considered as the temple of democracy. But its sanctity is now openly flouted by its own members. The situation in Parliament for the last 5 years is no better than a fish market where only noise is heard. Its honourable members maintain neither any discipline nor courtesy and decorum inside the Parliament. Since the announcement of a separate state of Telangana by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh was announced by Manmohan Singh-led UPA-II government, its opponent and supporter have made it a point not to run the Parliament. All limits of parliamentary discipline, courtesy and decorum were crossed today when the four of UPA Union Ministers from Andhra Pradesh ran into the well against the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh to create Telangana and forced the Union Railways Minister to stop his interim railway budget speech and lay his budgetary speech papers on the table of the House. This is first time that a Parliamentary proceeding on the day of rail budget has been disrupted in this way. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed extreme unhappiness over the unruly behaviour of MPs. He has said that his heart bleeds to see what is happening in the House. This is very unfortunate that our representatives in Parliament adopt this type of unruly behaviour. How can the people expect to make law from these types of lawmakers when they themselves indulge in unruly behaviour inside the House? This is very bad omen for democracy. It is natural for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to become very sad over disruptions in Parliament. But has he even once thought why this type of anarchy and bedlam have been created in Parliament over Telangana? If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had developed consensus over the creation of Telangana by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, this type of unsavoury situation would not have arisen in the Parliament. The demand for the creation of a separate state of Telangana is not new. It is a decade long demand. It means that the UPA government went for Telangana only to compensate its possible political loss due to its unpopularity in Andhra Pradesh. The UPA government’s political move of Telangana has backfired on it. Huge public exchequer is wasted daily because of disruptions in Parliament. At least Six bills of public interest are pending. And now there is no hope of passing them. This type of disruptions in Parliament is very dangerous sign for democracy. People are watching keenly the drama of chaos and anarchy inside the Parliament.