New Delhi:
The image of MPs took another beating on Wednesday when two members of the Rajya Sabha, one from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and another from the BSP, came to blows. In the melee and between two adjournments courtesy the BJP, the government tabled a bill to allow reservation in promotions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government jobs and said it had done its bit.
The two MPs who turned the floor of the Upper House into a wrestling ring are the SP's Naresh Aggarwal and BSP's Avtar Singh. The Samajwadi Party is opposed to the promotion quota bill, the BSP is its prime mover. The two MPs were seen pushing each other and exchanging blows 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. (
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The bill will be brought in Rajya Sabha today for consideration and passage, Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said. "We do want to pass the Bill...we will try for the passage of the Bill again on Thursday. We are listing it again...The government is clear that there should be reservation in promotions upto 22.5 per cent for SCs and STs in government jobs," Mr Bansal had said.
Earlier on Wednesday though, after an afternoon meeting called by the Prime Minister to discuss the fallout of the scuffle and the chaos in Parliament, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had said there would not be enough time to pass the bill in this session.
Rajya Sabha had to be finally adjourned for the day just after 2pm with the BJP-led opposition again shouting slogans against the government. The BJP had made clear that while it supports the promotion quota bill, it would not allow the government to use it to divert attention from its core demand this monsoon session - that the Prime Minister resign over the coal allocation issue. It was for the 11th day that the opposition party did not allow Parliament to function.
The monsoon session ends tomorrow. However, the bill will stay "alive" for all time since it was tabled in the Rajya Sabha, which does not have an expiry date for bills, unlike the Lok Sabha.
Mr Narayanasamy said, "We took all the initiatives. There is no delaying tactic...if some political leaders say something for political expediency, I will not comment."
But an angry Mayawati hit out at both the BJP and the Congress calling both parties "snakes" after Mr Shinde said that the bill wouldn't be passed in this session. The SP said that it would continue to oppose the bill, which Mulayam Singh Yadav called "unconstitutional".
The BJP, which accused the government of using this bill to divert attention from its demands on coal allocation, said it was not against social justice but insisted that it would not let Parliament function till its demand for the PM's resignation and for the cancellation of the allocations of 142 coal blocks, which it says is at the root of what is being called the "coal-gate" scam, was met. It's ally the JD(U) said it will fully support the bill. "Our party fully supports the bill for providing reservation for promotion in jobs to the SC/ST. But there are certain issues on which we have different stands from our ally BJP but there is no division in the NDA. NDA is one and will remain intact," said JD(U)'s Sharad Yadav.
But it was the scuffle in Rajya Sabha that in fact diverted attention from the other issues. The SP's Naresh Aggarwal sought to justify his action in Parliament by saying that the BSP member was getting "offensive" and was not allowing him to speak. His party leader Ram Gopal Yadav defended him 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."
(With PTI inputs)