Leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday said the opposition's boycott of the proceedings of the upper house was over the contentious farm bills passed by the House on Sunday and would continue till three conditions with regard to ensuring minimum support price to the farmers were met.
Azad clarified that revocation of suspension of eight opposition MPs—over their allegedly unruly behaviour in the House as the bills were passed—was not a condition to end the boycott. He said only a request had been made to the chairman of the Rajya Sabha to reconsider the decision to suspend the MPs for the remainder of the Monsoon Session.
Azad said at the crux of the decision to boycott the proceedings was the manner in which the bills were passed amid a din.
“As many as 18 parties were against extending the sitting of the House, and only one was in favour of it. Yet, the house sitting was extended contrary to what the majority of the parties felt,” Azad said.
“The bills were passed amidst din. The tradition in the Rajya Sabha is that no bill is passed in din. Unfortunately, bills that would impact the interests of crores of farmers were passed without a clause-by-clause voting and without taking up any of the amendments moved by the opposition,” he said.
Quoting late BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who had been the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Azad said a bill that is passed without division is illegal. The opposition has written to President Ramnath Kovind that he should not give his assent to the two bills since they were passed without following the right procedure and in violation of parliamentary norms.
Azad said the opposition has put forth three conditions for the boycott to be called off, and all three have to do with the need to ensure that the MSP is not done away with.
The first condition, he said, is that in the event of the president giving his assent to the bills, another bill should be brought in Parliament making it illegal for farm produce to be purchased at below the MSP, and the prime minister or the agriculture minister should make an announcement in this regard on the floor of the House. “Even if farmers sell their produce in the open market, it should be illegal for the buyer to buy the produce at below the MSP.”
The second condition is that the MSP should be fixed on the basis of the C2 formula devised by the Swaminathan Committee.
The third condition put forth by the opposition parties is that it should be made illegal even for the state agencies and the Food Corporation of India, besides the private agencies, to buy food grains at rates below the MSP.
Azad said the opposition has requested the chairman of the house to revoke the suspension of the eight MPs, clarifying that it is not a condition for ending the boycott. “We are not in favour of members standing on tables or pulling out mikes. But there is a reason behind such a behaviour. The government bulldozed through the house as it passed the bills, did not agree to send them to a select committee and time was not given to the opposition members,” he said.
Even as Azad said the boycott was purely over the farm bills, Congress chief whip in the Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh tweeted about the reasons behind the boycott of the rest of the Monsoon Session by the Congress and like-minded parties and appeared to adopt a more strident tone with regard to the suspension of MPs.
Ramesh listed seven reasons for the boycott, with the manner in which the bills were bulldozed by the government topping the list. He then said it was also because of the manner in which eight MPs were suspended without listening to them and without division on suspension motion.
Also among the reasons specified by him are the manner in which the leader of opposition was not allowed to speak, the government failing to accommodate views of the opposition, crucial bills not getting referred to standing or select committees, division of the house not being allowed on the bills and MSP not being made part of the agricultural marketing law and not being made applicable to private trade.
Azad, meanwhile, in response to a question, appreciated the gesture by Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Singh in meeting the suspended MPs at the dharna site with tea on Tuesday morning. “It was a good gesture on part of the deputy chairman... After all, we are all one family, the chair and the members and we should all work together in a cordial atmosphere,” he said.
The suspended MPs ended their protest at the Gandhi Statue in the Parliament complex after the boycott call was made. After their suspension was announced on Monday, the MPs proceeded to undertake a sit-in protest and they spent the night at the dharna site.
