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Opposition parties criticised the Centre’s decision to promulgate an ordinance on the Insurance Bill and the re-promulgation of the Coal Ordinance here on Wednesday, a day after the winding up of the Winter Session of Parliament.
While the Congress and Trinamool Congress questioned the Centre’s motive, the CPI(M) has written a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee, urging him not to sign the ordinances and “nip in the bud” tendencies that may result in “imposing an authoritarian manner of parliamentary functioning.”
Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmed said it was unfortunate that ordinances were issued a day after the Winter session. “This shows the Narendra Modi government’s respect for the parliamentary system. The Rajya Sabha could have worked in order if the Prime Minister had answered Opposition’s questions on conversion,” he said.
“It is extremely unethical to avoid and bypass the democratic process. What value does it serve to bulldoze the democratic process,” TMC spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP, Derek O’Brien, said in Kolkata.
CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury sent a letter to the President, requested him not to sanction any ordinance bypassing parliamentary procedures.
“In the recently concluded Winter Session of Parliament, a total of 16 legislations were taken up. An unprecedented 13 of these were passed without being referred to, thus scrutinised by the Parliamentary Standing Committees. To use a phrase that emerged during the European Enlightenment establishing modern Parliamentary democracy, this practice is the brutal exercise of the ‘tyranny of democracy’,” Yechury said in the letter.
He said the Government could not muster a majority in the Rajya Sabha on the Bills. “A Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha scrutinised the Insurance Bill. Its report has been tabled in the House but not yet deliberated upon. It, hence, remains the property of the House on which a decision is pending. Until this process is completed, the issuance of an Ordinance would be a grave violation of the sanctity of Parliamentary proceedings,” he added.
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