Naidu urges members to maintain decorum in Upper House

Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu on Friday expressed displeasure at the turn of events during the voting on the RTI Bill on Thursday. He urged the members to avoid such situations in future and maintain decorum.

Opposition MPs had alleged that the Treasury Benches tried to intimidate them during the voting. “What happened yesterday (Thursday) has hurt me. It has hurt the people of the country also,” Naidu said.

He told the members that school children were present in the visitor’s gallery of the Upper House. “We should see to it that such situations and such scenes are avoided in future,” he said.

Naidu said there has to be clarity that if any Bill originating from the Lok Sabha is taken up in the Rajya Sabha, and if any Member wants to move amendments, those amendments and Bills would be taken up together for discussion.

“That has been the practice in the House since long. I do not want to quote all the instances when successive Chairmen have given a ruling and the House has followed the same. They would be taken up first after discussion and then, there would be voting on amendments. If the amendments are carried out, to refer it to the Select Committee, then there is no meaning in having voting on the Bill. If the amendment is negatived, then there would be voting on the Bill also. This has been the tradition. That has to be understood by all and everybody should respect that,” Naidu said.

Referring the controversy over the behaviour of certain MPs during the voting, he said such practices are not healthy. “Once the voting process starts, whether electronic voting or by slips or, like it happened in the other House, standing -- I do not want standing and voting. We have elders here, it won’t look nice making Members to stand and count the votes and then, if there is some problem, asking them to stand up again — in such a situation, nobody from this, that or any side is expected to move to any other place and talk to Members,” he said.

He said people in authority should be more careful of such things. “Even individual Members are not supposed to move in the House to talk to other members. Members are at liberty to talk to them before the voting process starts and, that too, preferably outside the House,” he added.

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