Trinamool MP Derek O’Brien shared sarcastic remarks while questioning the government for rushing the bills through the parliament “at an average time of under seven minutes per bill.” He added that it felt as if it was “making paper chaat”.
He also accused the Centre of violating the “sanctity of the parliament”.
On Monday morning, the Rajya Sabha MP tweeted “In the first 10 days, Modi-Shah rushed through and passed 12 bills at an average time of UNDER SEVEN MINUTES per Bill... Passing legislation or making papri chaat!”
His tweet accompanied a graphic that listed all the bills that were passed in both the houses of the parliament. According to the data in the graphic, each bill was passed within minutes of it being presented.
The Coconut Development Board Bill was the fastest to be passed in just one minute while the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority Of India Bill was the slowest to be passed in 14 minutes.
Narendra Modi’s government is yet to reach this statement.
Earlier in 2019 also, MP Derek O’Brien took a similar dig, “Are we delivering pizzas…”, at the government for the hurried passing of the ‘triple talaq’ bill.
Also Read: Pegasus Scandal: Supreme Court to hear petition demanding probe on Thursday
Parliament’s monsoon session that began on July 19 has witnessed little to no business amid fierce protests from the opposition on a variety of issues of which farm laws and Pegasus row were a big part.
The opposition headed by the congress is successfully stalling the functioning of the parliament with fierce protests over the Pegasus phone-hacking allegations. Their demand is for a discussion in the parliament in presence of the Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There is also a demand for an independent judicial inquiry over the allegations that Israel’s NSO Group’s Indian client used the controversial hacking software to hack the phones of more than 300 journalists, activists, opposition leaders and current union ministers.
Friday was a complete standstill in both the houses as the proceedings were disrupted over Pegasus and the farm laws.
The centre claimed that these disruptions have caused a loss of INR 133 crore to the exchequer. As per unmanned sources, the Lok Sabha had only functioned for about 7 out of the allocated 54 hours and the Rajya Sabha for 11 out of the norm 53.
So far the government has refused a probe and discussion into the Pegasus controversy, putting a subtle end to the discussion.
Trinamool’s O’Brien has however went ahead with the setup of a judicial commission to investigate the claims.
Last week PM Modi attacked Congress with the charge of not allowing the parliament to function and asked the MPs of his party, BJP, to “expose the party before the public and media”.
The opposition has called blocking golf the Parliament a tactic widely used and matched with BJP when it was not in power. Blocking is a democratic process to force and compel the government to concede to its demands over serious national security and privacy row "bigger than Watergate", the opposition said.