Oppn MPs conduct mock Parliament
Angered over a “low rise” in salaries and expressing displeasure over the passage of the Medical Council of India (Amendment) Bill without discussion, Opposition MPs today staged a mock Parliament inside the Lok Sabha chamber after the House was prematurely adjourned for the day.
BJP leader Gopinath Munde, deputy leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, claimed that Opposition MPs sat on the floor of the House and conducted their ‘own’ Lok Sabha after the House was adjourned. He also threatened to repeat the innovative protest on Saturday.
Parliament will sit on Saturday to compensate for the loss of time during the protests in the initial days of the ongoing monsoon session.
While the galleries for media and visitors were vacated and even parliamentary staff were barred from entering the House, according to sources, agitated MPs continued their demonstration for more than an hour.
Maneka Gandhi of the BJP told Business Standard that the anger was more because of the passage of the Bill.
“If one person is corrupt, that doesn’t mean the entire system is corrupt. The Bill aims a take over most of the powers of MCI by the government. Former health minister Anbumani Ramdoss tried to do the same and the country’s premier All India Institute of Medical Science suffered. This minister (Ghulam Nabi Azad) is trying to do the same,” she said outside the Lok Sabha.
The corruption-ridden MCI, set up 76 years ago to regulate medical education in the country, has already been dissolved through an ordinance in May this year.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal argued, “We had kept time for discussion on the Bill. But due to the disruption by Opposition members, the Bill could not be debated. There was a pressing need to pass the Bill, otherwise the related Ordinance would have lapsed.”
Except the Left and the BJP, some other parties stalled proceedings in the Lok Sabha demanding that wages be raised to at least Rs 80,001. The group was led by RJD chief Lalu Prasad and SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav.