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According to PRS Legislative Research Reports and AnalysisIn the 2024 winter parliamentary session – held from November 25 to December 20 – the Lok Sabha worked for 52 per cent of its scheduled time, while the Rajya Sabha worked for 39 per cent.
Comparison between the proposed legislative activity planned by the Houses and the observed actual performance (on intended activity).
Of the total time spent, only 37 per cent of the time of the Lok Sabha session was spent on legislative activities, while 22 per cent of the time of the Rajya Sabha session was spent on legislative activities.
Even during this short period of legislative activity, only four bills were introduced, one of which was passed during the session (except the Appropriation and Finance Bills).
In this session, a notice for bringing a proposal to remove Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar was presented on December 10. This was the first such motion against the Vice President. However, the notice was rejected by the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha on “procedural grounds”.
historical context
It is inappropriate to link the dynamics of parliamentary governance effectiveness Alone with its working level. Yet, last year, for the winter session of 2023, the 17th Lok Sabha worked for 74 per cent of its scheduled time and the Rajya Sabha for 81 per cent.
This winter, for the 18th Lok Sabha, there was also a sharp decline in the active functional time for each House to convene Parliament and discuss legislative business.
This has clearly impacted the ability of both Houses to discuss the course of legislative business, including in-depth deliberations on bills introduced.
Earlier parliamentary sessions under the Narendra Modi government saw high legislative activity – but amid the rail-travel of introducing and passing bills. 56 per cent of the bills introduced till the 2023 monsoon session were passed by both Houses with little scrutiny (where on average a bill was passed within eight days of being introduced).
With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s numbers in Parliament dwindling in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, its ability to get bills passed or passed, especially those requiring a two-thirds majority, remains weak, such as One Nation One Election Bill (This time the ruling party suffered defeat due to its failure to obtain the required parliamentary votes). There are also some issues which are yet to be considered in the previous Lok Sabhas.
The 17th Lok Sabha did not elect a Deputy Speaker for its entire term and there has been no appointment to the post since 2019. The 18th Lok Sabha has also not elected a Deputy Speaker (note how in 2023 the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Central government in response to a PIL on this issue). The Constitution, in its 75th year (recently celebrated), requires the Lok Sabha to elect a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker as soon as possible.
Regression in parliamentary discourse, criticism and thought
Earlier, according to PRS Legislative, “the 17th Lok Sabha (till 2023) passed 22 bills (in the monsoon session alone). Twenty of these bills were discussed for less than an hour before being passed. IIM (Amendment) “Nine bills, including the Bill, 2023 and the Inter-Services Organization Bill, 2023, were passed in the Lok Sabha within 20 minutes.”
Waves of parliamentary theatrics have defined the disjointed functioning of Indian democracy in the last decade. Disruption in this winter session and inability to organize the proceedings of the House is a clear matter.
For those monitoring and observing the proceedings of each parliamentary session, the repetitive acts of adjournment, anarchy by the opposition, a permanent ecosystem of red flags and protests (inside and outside the House chamber), bias in the behavior of the Speakers of the House And with bias. Have become part of (against opposition party MPs) unusual Norms catalyze rapid passage of bills by the ruling executive, without critical discussion or proper reflection.
There is an insidious way in which the current regime has used legislative and other institutional mechanisms to pursue its agenda of establishing centralized, consolidated and autocratic control.
The presence of legal vacancies among the weak opposition (such as from recent or past Supreme Court decisions) makes its path less fraught with challenges. This is even more disturbing.
Observed last year’s parliamentary sessions as an observer three main thingsIndicative of a crisis of parliamentary and government accountability (change in stability), an overcentralized executive action (under institutional capture), exactly the way various bills were passed and the issues therein ignorantly dismissed.
Once the Bill becomes law, the Central Government will have most of the powers to define and exercise the scope of its application and the substance of data protection rules.
right here Gita of Shakti – a rule By law for one autocratic regime (even if in power by an internal coalition) – enables the government to use the instrument of law to do mischief as and when it pleases, with zero accountability for its actions.
When considering the selective interpretation of events and the manner in which proceedings took place in this session (as has been a pattern seen for some time now), one can only recall how the present Government , have elements similar to British Raj Which ruled India for more than two centuries (first by the East India Company and then by the Queen’s rule), established an imperial umbrella – consolidating power through centralization, law, language and knowledge.
Amidst the deep decline in democratic values and the constitutionally protected separation of powers and the systematic capture of independent institutions, one can only explore how closely the current state of politics in India resembles the lived experience of the colonial administration, which raises its concerns. It suffers from insecurities, and a controlling nature to rule and protect at all costs without any accountability or respect for constitutionalism.
,Deepanshu MohanProfessor of Economics, Dean, IDEAS, Office of Inter-Disciplinary Studies and Director of the Center for New Economics Studies (CNES) of OP Jindal Global University. He is Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and Fall 2024 Academic Visitor to the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own.The QuintNeither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
