Govt indicates no legislative agenda in Rajya Sabha during first half of Budget Session

By Payal Mehta
New Delhi [India], January 31 : Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday held a virtual meeting with the floor leaders of 15 political parties.
According to sources, Naidu stated that during the ten sittings in the first part of the Budget Session till February 11, only 23 hours of time will be available for business other than Zero Hour, Question Hour and Private Members' Business.
"Discussion on Motion of Thanks to the President for his address to members of both the Houses today and discussion on Union Budget 2022-23 to be presented tomorrow will get priority during the first part of the session," sources said.
He informed the leaders that these two major items of business took a total time of over 26 hours during the last budget session and 23 hours time is available for the same in the first part of this budget session.
Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha, Piyush Goyal informed the members that due to the time constraint, there would be no legislative business in this part of the session.
Many leaders mentioned the same priorities for the first part of this budget session and called for a disruption-free session.
The meeting of the Rajya Sabha's Business Advisory Committee would take place tomorrow after the presentation of the Union Budget to allocate time for the two discussions that would take place in this first part of the Budget Session.
Meanwhile, Opposition party Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Prasanna Acharya urged all parties and members of respective parties not to disrupt Zero Hour and Question Hour since Chairman Naidu has been endeavouring to give opportunities to as many members as possible thereby enabling wider participation of members of Rajya Sabha.
Stating that Rajya Sabha loses an hour per each sitting due to the staggered sitting of both Houses, Naidu said, "The Budget session provides guidance to help the national economy recover from the impact of COVID pandemic over the last two years which continues with the third wave."
"I earnestly appeal to all the leaders to enable a productive budget session by urging members of respective parties so as to make meaningful contributions for economic recovery and all-around development at this hour of challenge," he added.
The Upper House has been at the centre of disruption in the last two sessions including the Monsoon and the Winter Session of Parliament in 2021.
In last year's Winter Sessions, 12 members of the Opposition were suspended for the entire session for unruly behaviour during last year's Monsoon Session. The Opposition united and had refused to participate in a major part of the proceedings in the last session in protest.
Today's meeting was attended by Anand Sharma, Bhupendra Yadav, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Derek O'Brien, Tiruchi Siva, Prasanna Acharya, Premchand Gupta, Dr K Kesava Rao, Ramnath Thakur, Praful Patel, Vijayasai Reddy, Kanakamedala, Ravindra Kumar, Birendra Prasad Baishya and Abdul Wahab.