PM urges Oppn for passage of important bills in Parliament

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the Opposition on Thursday to let Parliament function “peacefully and responsibly”, invoking Congress stalwarts Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

He praised Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for organizing a two-day workshop for women lawmakers and wondered whether a decision can be taken to ensure that only women members talk in both Houses on March 8, the International Women’s Day. “When Parliament sessions are not functional, the nation suffers and more than that the MPs suffer because they can not discuss issues”, Mr Modi said, adding sarcastically that the government suffers the least loss.

Parliament is a forum where government is questioned and made to clarify its stand on various issues, Modi said.

Referring to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s jibe at the “Make in India” scheme, Modi said: “You are joking over Make in India?”

“The ordinance was torn apart when the then honourable prime minister Manmohan Singh was in the U.S. to meet (Barack) Obama…Please learn to respect elders”, he said.

Parliament has managed to pass just one bill since the current session began on February 23 due to rowdy protests in the house over the controversial arrest of a student leader last month.

We are mocking things like “Make in India”.

“Some people want to oppose for the sake of it. There are such bright MPs in the opposition, but they are not being allowed to speak”. If 18,000 villages still do not have electricity, this is your contribution…You tell me governing is different from delivering election speeches.

“Does the Congress Vice President need a certificate from an acolyte and a propagandist of this government because he is also Information and Broadcasting Minister?” Here are some of the quotes from Modi’s speech.

“Let us walk shoulder to shoulder”.

He further added that according to the CAG report, maximum benefit of the scheme was reaped by states having low number of poor people, while the ones with high number of poor did not benefit from the scheme.

“We have our view on this scheme”.

After hearing Rahul, Jaitley said, he felt “India has made the right choice between the Prime Minister who leads the Government and a Prime Minister who is merely implementing decisions taken elsewhere”.

Training guns at the Congress, Modi also slammed it over the issue of poverty.

An official press note later said the demands for levying tax only on the accumulated returns on the corpus and not on the contributed amount was under government’s consideration.