NDA, BJP MPs take 23 days' pay cut for disrupted part of Parliament's Budget Session; blame Congress for washout

Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies in Parliament decided not to take salary and allowances for the second phase of the Budget Session, which has been completely washed out. BJP and NDA party MPs announced on Wednesday night that they will take a pay cut for the 23 days wasted in the second phase of the Budget Session as they accused the Congress party of playing negative politics. The government had listed a few crucial bills for consideration and passage in both Houses during the second leg of the Budget Session. [caption id=“attachment_4405699” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Parliament building. PTI[/caption] Announcing the decision, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said it has been decided that the NDA MPs would be giving up their salary and other allowances for 23 days “for which parliament was not allowed to function by the Congress”. “The Congress is engaging in anti-democratic politics by stopping important bills from being passed, which is leading to criminal wastage of taxpayers money,” he told reporters at a hurriedly-called briefing. Interestingly, Ananth Kumar singled out Congress for the trouble in Parliament while there are other parties like AIADMK, TDP, YSR Congress and TRS who had disrupted Parliament on various days citing different issues. “It is people’s money. MPs have been elected to work for the people. Since no work is being done we have decided not to take money,” he said, adding that Congress was indulging in negative politics. “The Congress has become intolerant of the people’s mandate given to Narendra Bhai Modi. We will take the issue to the people,” he said. Both the government and the Opposition have been blaming each other for the wash out of the session ever since it resumed on 5 March for the second part of the Budget session. While for the first few days the opposition including Congress had disrupted the house seeking to rake up issues like banking fraud, the protests took a different turn after YSR Congress and TDP brought no-confidence motions on the issue of special category status for Andhra Pradesh. Several other parties including Congress, TMC, CPM tabled similar notices. However, the AIADMK, considered friendly to BJP, took the protest to a new level with its members in both the houses of parliament raking up the Cauvery Management Board issue and disrupting the proceedings without any break for over a fortnight. Earlier, BJP’s Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari had demanded implementation of “no work, no pay” rule in Parliament, and pitched for reducing emoluments of MPs if they fail to engage in “constructive work”. Tiwari wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on 20 March expressing his “great anguish” at the stalemate in the Lower House over the “unprecedented chaos”, and said it was equally disturbing to see public representatives, who are primarily responsible for making laws, running away from their responsibilities. “I, therefore, propose deducting the salaries of MPs for their failure to engage in any constructive work. Let’s follow the fair practice of no work, no pay,” he wrote. According to a report in  Financial Express, this turned out to be the worst Budget Session in a decade in terms of productivity as it bled the state exchequer of almost Rs 190 crore until 3 April, when the report was published. The report claimed that with 22 sittings having witnessed only 25 percent productivity in the Lok Sabha and 35 percent in the Rajya Sabha until 3 April, as it claimed that the overall expenditure of running Lok Sabha is estimated at Rs 656 crore in FY18, against Rs 570.4 crore a year earlier. The expenditure relating to the Rajya Sabha in FY18 is expected to have touched Rs 384.1 crore, against Rs 350.1 crore a year before.