Why President Pratibha Patil was booed in Parliament

President Pratibha Patil, delivering her last address to Parliament, must have hoped for an uneventful speech. However, she found herself interrupted multiple times during her speech with members from the opposition raising their voices when she read out the future plans of the government. These were the main issues that found disfavor with the opposition: [caption id=“attachment_241128” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Among the issues over which the President was disrupted include a subquota for minorities, fertiliser and Sri Lanka. PTI”]  [/caption] 1. Sub-quota of 4.5 percent for minority communities in OBC category “With a view to ensuring empowerment of minorities, my Government has recently decided to provide a sub-quota of 4.5 per cent for socially and educationally backward classes of citizens belonging to minorities, within the 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes,”  the President said prompting shouts from the opposition benches. The announcement of this decision comes after the Congress’ Law Minister Salman Khurshid spoke about it while campaigning for his wife during the UP elections. After being pulled up by the Election Commission, both the Congress and Khurshid had refrained from commenting on it but evidently the die had already been cast. The President’s announcement today was the first formal announcement by the government that they planned to go ahead with the reservation and it remains to be seen if it will be passed. The announcement for the sub-quota didn’t do much good for Khurshid either, his wife lost in the UP polls. 2.  Sri Lanka and its human rights record: During her speech, President Patil said, “My Government also initiated steps for resettlement and rehabilitation of the internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka.” However, before and towards the end of her speech some Members of Parliament (MPs) of DMK and AIADMK decided to make their presence felt and began shouting that India should not support Sri Lanka in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). “We cannot support Sri Lanka!” an MP shouted but was gestured to by Speaker Meira Kumar to take his seat and not disrupt the speech. There was no mention made in the President’s speech of the UNHRC resolution that has been moved against the Sri Lankan government by the US which will be voted on this week. While the Sri Lankan government has  been hoping that the Indian government would support it but a formal stance has still to be decided by the government. DMK, a UPA ally, has been strongly opposed to any support being given to the Sri Lanka and AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa has also raised opposition to Sri Lankan MPs making frequent visits to the state. However, a Sri Lankan lawmaker was quoted today as saying that the US move was a conspiracy against the nation and warned that if India supported the resolution it could later see a similar resolution against it for human rights violations in Kashmir. 3. Telangana and fertilisers Some MPs, ironically from the Congress party,  raised slogans supporting the creation of the state of Telangana. However, they didn’t bother finding any context to the President’s speech before raising their voices. The President’s speech also made mention of steps being taken to increase fertiliser production and raised the hackles of a Janata Dal (U) MP who informed Parliament that farmers were not receiving fertilisers.