NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha on Wednesday witnessed heated exchanges after Trinamool Congress MP Dola Sena, while slamming the renaming of Raj Bhavans as Lok Bhavans during Zero Hour without keeping state govts or state assemblies in the loop, sought to ridicule the govt for talking about the people while allegedly depriving them of their Constitutional rights.Objecting to Sen bringing in references to “MGNREGA and other issues” during the course of her speech, Leader of House J P Nadda requested the Chair to expunge references anot related to the subject — renaming of Raj Bhavans— that Sen was allowed by the Chair to raise.
Chairman C P Radhakrishnan concurred, reiterating that “anything deviated from the subject will not go on record”.However, this was contested by Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge who said Sen had not said anything that was unparliamentary or not connected with the issue relating to the Nov 25 directive of the Union ministry of home affairs asking states/UTs to rename their Raj Bhavans as Lok Bhavans.“She has not spoken any unparliamentary word. Everything is connected with the subject. And that subject was examined in your office, after that she spoke,” he said, addressing the Chair.Accusing the Leader of the House of interference, Kharge said he was bulldozing by saying whatever is said (by Sen) is unparliamentary and asking it to be deleted. “You don’t want to run (the House) according to parliamentary democracy,” he alleged.The Chair maintained that proceedings were being conducted properly and urged members to stick to listed subjects during Zero Hour.Nadda defended his intervention, stating, “I never bulldozed”, and clarified that he was only requesting that only remarks related to the subject remain on record.
