Telangana ruckus in RS: Only Chiranjeevi got to speak

A low point in yesterday’s Rajya Sabha, which enacted the Telangana Act, was when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s voice was drowned by the ‘N0, no” chant of the Trinamool MPs. When he stood up, four MPs, two of them women, all from the treasury benches came forward and stood in front of him, acting as a human shield. The women, apparently were there to deter any physical lunge towards the PM. After the pepper spraying in Lok Sabha earlier, anything could have happened, because our law-makers seem to be set on creating new lows. No one within the House, amid the din, could hear what the soft-spoken prime minister said, so much so that Jairam Ramesh was twice seen walking to the Opposition benches with a copy of the PM’s statement. Arun Jaitley got the PM’s original statement. [caption id=“attachment_1401957” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Prime Minister was completely drowned out: PTI[/caption] The well was littered with torn papers believed to be copies of the Bill, some of them thrown towards the PM. Placard carrying members positioned themselves in front of MPs trying to make themselves heard so they could be caught by the cameras. Every time a member stood up, the noisy brigade moved around. It was a well orchestrated but an unbecoming sight. The BJP which was willing to even agree to an amendment to the Constitution “here and now” to enable policing to be under a governor, which under current provisions cannot be, had no idea what the prime minister was saying. Venkaiah Naidu (BJP) was at a loss to know if the “five years” that was mentioned was about the joint sharing of the capital or the tenure of the proposed special assistance. They could not hear a thing. In comparison, K Chiranjeevi from Andhra Pradesh received better courtesy when he got up. He beseeched that he be heard, because it was his maiden speech. The tradition is that newbies are encouraged and can even read a speech. Others can only refer to their notes. For a while it was pin drop silence, not afforded to any other speaker during the proceedings. And yes, elected in April 2012, and as a Minister of State for tourism, it was his maiden speech. Perhaps his interventions in the House he belonged – responses to questions, etc. are apparently not treated as a speech. Probably, his peers from Andhra Pradesh knew he was going to slam the government. He even said, “I am speaking against my party”. There were, at least on TV, no red faces seen. When the Lok Sabha had converted the Bill to provide statehood for Telangana into an Act, it was an off-camera event. The claims – as of now unsettled – that it was a technical glitch and not a deliberate turning off of the transmission remain unsettled. The precise parts of the dramatic events are not known. Yesterday’s theatrics in Rajya Sabha, where those wanting to preserve the state as it is, refusing to accept the residual Seemandhra, was not educating. It could possibly clue us in to what could have happened in the Lok Sabha. An MP, Asaduddin Owaisi has claimed publicly that even audio recordings were not done. We don’t know if we will ever get a fully pixelated picture of what transpired. What struck those who were able to watch the live telecast of the Rajya Sabha proceedings was the helplessness of the presiding officer, Deputy Chairman, PJ Kurien. He twice declined to agree to a division because of the unruly situation. “How can I?” The ruckus in the well of the House, he said, prevented him from allowing a division. At least two MPs made this demand. First, it was Venkaiah Naidu, a BJP front-bencher. After several valiant attempts, he gave up. The came CPM’s Sitaram Yechury’s turn, who refused to buy the contention that due to the commotion, no division could be held. The presiding officer’s business is to keep the house in order. Yes, said Kurien, but it is also the responsibility of the members. The Left walked out, calling the proceedings undemocratic, which was closer to the truth than the Andhra MPs who screamed their way through the day, saying that the Bill itself was illegal. That the House was in a hurry was evident. Naidu even asked, “Why the hurry?” The house was clearly not in the control of the deputy chairman. NK Singh even walked out because he said there was no point in participating in the debate. There perhaps is no precedent of this kind in the history of parliament, save bar the Lok Sabha on that peppery day to avoid a division. A division is when the doors are closed, and members remain in their seats and cast their votes from there. Till the counts are unannounced, the doors to the lobbies remain shut. The fish market situation prevented this from happening. Mohammed Adeeb, another MP, instead of talking about the Bill under consideration, preferred to, and rightly so, talked about how the Rajya Sabha’s proceedings, clouded by the conduct of the MPs themselves drew adverse attention of the world. He was worried about the image of the House and its members and the speech was brief, but pointed. It appeared that what he said was as if something was mentioned in passing.