Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday assured the Opposition that their every word is "valuable" to the government irrespective of their "numbers", and asked it to actively speak in Parliament.
On the first day of the Monsoon session, Modi also urged all MPs to be impartial in the House and address issues related to the larger interest of the nation.
Underlining the importance of an active opposition in a democracy, the Prime Minister said he hopes the opposition "will speak actively and participate in House proceedings... I am hopeful that this session will be more productive."
He also said,"when we come to Parliament, we should forget 'paksh' (treasury) and 'vipaksh' (opposition) and should think about issues with a 'nishpaksh' (impartial) spirit and work in the larger interest of the nation."
Alleging that the Modi government used Parliament as a "rubber stamp" during its previous tenure, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said,"legislation through ordinance is a very unhealthy practice in a democracy. It should only be used in extreme cases where there is an emergency requirement otherwise the due processes of lawmaking must to be followed by the government in office."
He said, "we will now wait for the Prime Minister's assurance in this regard and whether the practice that was followed in the last five years is reversed, because in the last five years what we have seen is disrespect to Parliament, where the bills were brought by the government and because of its brute majority in the Lok Sabha, Parliament was treated as a rubber stamp."
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