Bisheshwar Mishra / New Delhi
The Winter Session of the Parliament ended today and along with it ended the terms of three well known Rajya Sabha members. Dr Karan Singh, Janardan Dwivedi and Parvez Hashmi. All members of the Congress party.
Among these, Dr Karan Singh happens to be the oldest member who had seen and worked with all the Prime Ministers of the country, from the first PM Jawaharlal Nehru to the present PM Narendra Modi. Well versed in Sanskrit, Indian tradition, culture and philosophy, Dr Singh commands respect in all political parties. This was evident from the fact that the Union Law Minister Ravishankar Prasad described him as a “philosopher King”.
In his speech, Karan Singh said Parliament has evolved over the 50 years since he came to Delhi, but not all the changes have been positive.
“I used to remember when I went to the Lok Sabha first there were brilliant debates by Hiren Mukherjee, Madhu Limaye, Nath Pai, Atalji (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) and here Bhupesh Gupta. Those were the debates now seem to me becoming rare, and disruptions are becoming more frequent.
“…I think, we need to do a little introspection to see what we can do to ensure that the parliamentary system functions according to the rules and positively,” Singh said.
The Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad pointed out that Singh was youngest ever to become the head of the independent and democratic state of Jammu and Kashmir at the age of 18 years. He said despite hailing from a royal family he did not have “any bad habits like smoking, driking or chewing paan. His only preoccupation was pursuit of knowledge and welfare of the country.”
Chairman Rajya Sabha Venkaiah Naidu who bid farewell to all these retiring members also expressed his admiration for Dr Karana Singh’s deep knowledge of Indian culture and said that the dignity with which Dr Singh and even other retiring members conducted themselves in the House during their tenure, could be a lessen to all other members. “Not once did I have to tell them to sit down or don’t shout or don’t speak out of turn,” Naidu said.
Talking about the business transacted in the winter session Naidu said the House had passed nine (9) government bills and over 400 questions were orally answered during the session. The session had commenced on December 15. However, he regretted that continued disruptions in the House and said that serious thought had to be given to this to sort this out.
The bill passed included- the Companies (Amendment) Bill, the Indian Institute of Management Bill, the Indian Forest (Amendment) Bill, the Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy Bill, the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment), the Repealing and Amending (Second) Bill, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Amendment) Bill.