New Delhi:
The image of MPs took another blow today with two members of the Rajya Sabha fighting with each other even as a bill to allow reservation in promotions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government jobs was being tabled. The BJP kept up its protest against the government over the coal scam, not allowing the House to function and get the bill passed.
After a meeting called by the Prime Minister to discuss the fallout of the scuffle and the chaos in Parliament, home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that there wouldn't be enough time to pass the bill. Rajya Sabha had to be finally adjourned for the day just after 2pm after the opposition again shouted slogans against the government.
This session of Parliament ends on Friday. However, the bill will stay "alive" for all time since it was tabled in Rajya Sabha, which does not have expiry date, unlike Lok Sabha.
Mayawati blamed the BJP and the Congress for the adjournments and the delays in getting the bill passed and called both parties "snakes" after Mr Shinde said that the bill won't pass in this session. The government reacted by saying that it had done its job by tabling the bill. The SP said that it will continue to oppose the bill, which Mulayam Singh Yadav called "unconstitutional".
The two MPs who turned the floor of Rajya Sabha into a wrestling ring belong to the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The SP is opposed to the introduction of quotas in promotion for SC/STs and the BSP is the prime mover of the bill. The SP's Naresh Agarwal and BSP's Avtar Singh were seen pushing each other and exchanging blows even as Minister of State in the PM's Office V Narayanasamy quickly tabled the bill. He later said that he had been expecting some trouble so had not carried any pieces of paper with him. In a similar scuffle during the tabling of the women's reservation bill (which too the SP opposes), a copy of the bill was torn up.
Mr Agarwal sought to justify his action in Parliament by saying that the BSP member was getting "offensive" and not allowing him to speak. His party leader Ram Gopal Yadav defended Mr Agarwal by invoking the scriptures: "It's alright to talk about lowering the dignity but even in Vedas and Puranas... it's written that in emergency everything is justified."
The BJP accuses the government of using this bill to divert attention from its demand that the Prime Minister resign on the coal allocation issue. The BJP is not opposed to the bill but is wary of being seen as helping the government. BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said that his party was not against social justice but insisted that it will not give up its demand for the cancellation of the allocations of 142 coal blocks which it says is at the root of the "coal-gate" scam.