New Delhi:
Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die today after a month-long Monsoon Session which saw passage of 18 legislations, including the landmark Food Security Bill and Land Acquisition Bill, but lost 44 hours of work due to disturbances over various issues.
"There were spells of calm and fury," Chairman Hamid Ansari said, summing up the proceedings of the session, which was extended by six days beyond August 30, when it was to originally end.
The House lost about 43 per cent of 98 hours of scheduled time due to disturbances over the Telangana issue, the missing files on coal block allocations, the land deals linked to Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra, the reports of Chinese incursions and the killing of five Indian soldiers by Pakistani troops at the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.
The issue of killing of a social activist in Maharashtra, the 84 Kos Yatra by the VHP, the government's move to fill up two vacancies in the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G spectrum and the deletion of remarks made by Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley during the
Prime Minister's statement also figured prominently in the House.
The session also saw day-long suspensions of two TDP members for continuously disrupting the House by protesting against creation of Telangana state.
The Question Hour could not be taken up on eight days due to pandemonium and interruptions in the House over one or the other issue.
An apparently unhappy Ansari observed, "The Question Hour continued to remain a casualty. It could function only on six of the stipulated 14 days. Only 28 out of 300 Starred Questions were answered orally while about 2,300 Unstarred Questions were provided written answers."