After a week wasted, government and opposition agree to run Parliament smoothly

NEW DELHI: After a week marked by disruptions and no legislative business on Monday, Parliament has finally seen a breakthrough, with the govt and the opposition agreeing to discuss the Constitution, celebrating 75 years of its adoption. The discussions are scheduled for Dec 13 and 14 in Lok Sabha, and Dec 16 and 17 in Rajya Sabha.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju announced the dates and expressed optimism that both Houses would function smoothly starting Tuesday. This agreement was reached during a meeting convened by Speaker Om Birla with floor leaders from various political parties.

"Today, a meeting of all party floor leaders was held with the speaker. Since the last few days, there has been a deadlock in Parliament and everyone expressed concerns over it. We too said all elected representatives come to Parliament to express their views and Parliament not functioning (properly) for several days now is not good. Everyone accepted this," Rijiju said. The agreement for restoring normalcy came as a surprise in view of Congress's hardline stance not to let Parliament function until govt agreed to discuss the allegations levelled against the Adani group in the US.

This shift of stand came against the backdrop of misgivings in opposition's ranks over Congress's stand, with Trinamool Congress, which had broken away from the agitation, skipping the meeting called by Congress to discuss floor coordination. TMC MPs had argued for moving away from an Adani-centric approach so that popular concerns like inflation could be debated. On Monday, Samajwadi Party is also learnt to have argued for letting Parliament function so that the violence over the survey carried out in Sambhal mosque could be discussed.

Rijiju said the speaker told the meeting that if anyone wanted to raise an issue, there was a rule for it. "You can submit a notice for it but creating ruckus in Parliament is not good. Everyone has accepted this. It is good that everyone has accepted that discussions will be held from tomorrow," he added.