Parliament diary

PM changes the concept of treasury benches

The concept of treasury benches is followed in Indian Parliament as it is in the House of Commons of the British Parliament. So the benches to the right of the Speaker are traditionally reserved for the members of the council of ministers of the ruling party. But today, Members of Parliament observed a departure from tradition during the question hour. After the recent expansion of the Union Council of ministers, the sitting arrangement was changed to break the traditional concept of treasury benches. The ministers were sitting not in the traditional treasury bench, but just opposite the chair of the Speaker. Junior minister of the department of consumer affairs C.R. Chowdhury responded to the first question of the day, but before doing so, he said, “Every Member of Parliament should take note that today I am answering your question from the seat where generally members of Parliament sit. This is a welcome change in this house. The seat from which I used to ask the ministers a question, it is exactly from that seat that today I am answering your question.”

Unusual precedent involving ‘tulsi’ Before the commencement of the second day of the monsoon session, new HRD minister Prakash Javadekar was seen anxiously asking his PA to call some members of Parliament. He had a list of about 50 MPs who were, at some point, in the teaching profession. Tuesday being Guru Purnima Diwas, he had organised a small function in room 62 of Parliament House, to felicitate the teachers-turned-MPs. Nobody present could recall an HRD minister organising such a function. What’s more, he had invited members of parliament across party lines, indicating his clear intention of building a consensus, which was missing in his predecessors’ days. Senior MPs Karan Singh, Subramanian Swamy and even critics of the present government’s education policies — Trinamul Congress MP Sougata Roy and Harvard-returned Prof Sugata Bose — were full of praise of the new HRD minister for this unique initiative. Mr Javdekar presented them a tulsi sapling and a Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. The choice of plant was much discussed — former HRD minister played a character named Tulsi in a popular television serial. Does parliamentary affairs minister from Bengal have a soft corner for TMC Trinamul Congress MPs were demanding a discussion on the price rise and Union parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar fixed July 21 as the day. But TMC Lok Sabha leader Sudip Bandopadhyay got upset as that was the day that the TMC observed ‘Martyr’s Day’ every year. Junior parliamentary affairs minister Mr Surinder Singh Ahluwalia, being an MP from the same state, knew that the day marked the shooting dead of 13 people by the West Bengal police in Kolkata during a rally by the West Bengal Youth Congress under Mamata Bandopadhyay on July 21, 1993. Mr Ahluwalia was in the Congress then as was Mamata Banerjee. She later left the Congress and formed the Trinamul Congress, but every year, she observes this day as a mark of her new political journey. Mr Ahluwalia changed the date of the discussion in the Lok Sabha to July 27 for the benefit of the TMC MPs.

The writer is a senior journalist covering Parliament for 25 years.