Opposition and Rajya Sabha Speaker Dhankhar reach a breaking point

A turbulent budget session of the Rajya Sabha, scheduled to end on Monday, was abruptly cut short on Friday and the House was adjourned.

“When the House gets adjourned ahead of schedule, questions listed for the remaining days lapse and MPs lose the chance of raising other issues of public importance. The Government unilaterally decides when to start and when to end a session and even then it doesn't stick to its own schedule,” exclaimed Maadhyam, a civil society platform which keeps a critical eye on parliament.

The abrupt adjournment of both Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, some say, was due to the opposition move to initiate a no-confidence motion against Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar. Article 67 of the Constitution says that the Vice-President, who is the ex-officio chairman of the Rajya Sabha, can be removed by a resolution passed by a majority of members in the RS and “agreed to by the House of the People (Lok Sabha)”. Moreover, 14 days’ notice of such intent is required before initiating the resolution.

Can such a notice of intent be given when the Rajya Sabha is not in session? And is there a provision to remove the chairman of the Rajya Sabha but not the Vice-President?

In other words, can the Rajya Sabha Chairman continue as the Vice-President even after being removed as the chairman by the House? These are grey areas which have no clarity because such situations have never arisen in the past. No-confidence resolutions have never been moved against any chairman till now, not even against scholar-diplomat Hamid Ansari, who was given a harrowing time by the BJP.

The Times of India quoted opposition sources saying that leader of the Rajya Sabha J.P. Nadda has already been sounded about the intention to move such a resolution in the winter session of parliament. The report mentioned that 87 opposition MPs had already put their signature to the proposal. The report said that the exercise to collect documentary evidence of the chairman’s partisan  and inconsistent conduct of the House has already started.

Mr Dhankhar is seen taking offence at the drop of a hat and accusing the opposition of derailing discussion, disrupting the House and even spreading chaos in the country. Opposition MPs also object to his hectoring tone and egregious comments. “Your conduct is the ugliest in the House. I condemn your actions. Next time I will show you the door,” he told Derek O’Brien. “You may be anybody. You may be a celebrity. You have to understand the decorum. I will not bear it…,” was his retort to Jaya Bachchan.  

While the chairman needlessly informed the House that he was proud to be associated with the RSS and that RSS had an unimpeacheable  standing, an opinion with which many opposition MPs do not agree, the chairman is not seen to accept criticism gracefully. Even outside the House he is seen criticising leaders of the opposition.

Last month he accused former union minister P. Chidambaram of making an “inexcusable insult to the wisdom of Parliament” while referring to the senior Congress leader’s critique of new criminal laws. Mr Chidambaram had said, ‘New laws were drafted by part-timers.’ Are we part-timers in Parliament?” the Vice President fumed.

On 5 August, 14 opposition MPs signed a memorandum addressed to Mr. Dhankhar, criticising his decision to deny their demand for a debate on the functioning of the Home Ministry. In their letter, they called Mr. Dhankhar’s decision “completely unilateral and unprecedented.” They wanted the House to be conducted by rules and the chairman to be consistent, they said.

“On July 29, five BJP MPs submitted a notice to discuss the tragedy of the flooding and deaths in an IAS coaching centre in Delhi. That discussion was allowed. But when a similar number of Opposition MPs wanted to raise an issue, we were disallowed,” one of the members who attended the meeting recalled.

On Friday, 9 August Congress’ Chief Whip Jairam Ramesh asked about the status of the Chairman’s ruling on a written complaint from the Congress asking him to expunge BJP MP Ghanshyam Tiwari’s remarks against Mr. Kharge, made on 1 August.

The chairman claimed that the BJP member had actually “praised Mr. Kharge in Sanskrit” and the matter had been sorted out in his chamber. The chair went on to add, “people don’t apologise when they praise”.

Mr. Kharge however insisted on a clarification on the floor of the House. “You should say the same thing you have explained to me in the chamber… It is better that you do it in the House,” he said. The Opposition then clamoured for an apology from Mr. Tiwari, with DMK MP Tiruchi Siva and Congress MP Pramod Tiwari pointing out that the BJP MP’s tone and tenor had been derogatory.

The chair ignored them and called Jaya Bachchan to speak as the ‘last speaker’ on the issue. When Ms Bachchan mildly said that as an artist she understood both body language and expressions, that with due respect she would like to submit that the chair’s tone and tenor was not acceptable.

The chair could have taken it lightly, reminded Ms Bachchan of effortlessly essaying the role of a schoolgirl and asked her to proceed. He could also have briefed the House about what happened in his chamber. Why should something that happened in the House in public be sorted out in his chamber privately? The chair, however, lost his cool and began shouting at the opposition himself, leading the opposition to stage a walkout. The entire Question Hour was washed out.

The chairman keeps saying "nation is always first" while criticising the Opposition for their behaviour, but then allows the entire Question hour get washed out because he was offended by some remark, exclaim opposition MPs.

“He cannot handle criticism or questioning, is partisan in his conduct and takes up a lot of time of the House giving unnecessary sermons! Interrupting MPs while they are speaking, not allowing the LOP to speak, cutting off his mic, answering on behalf of the Government and completely unwarranted emotional outbursts are increasingly becoming common,” one of them claimed.