By IANS,
New Delhi: Pandemonium over varied issues by ruling party and opposition members in both houses of Parliament Wednesday resulted in the loss of a second day of the winter session and another Rs.2 crore going down the drain.
In the first two days of this session, parliament has already lost about 17 hours work and over Rs.4 crore cumulatively, considering that rough estimates says each hour of parliament’s work costs the national exchequer Rs.25 lakh.
While the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) boycot of Home Minister P. Chidambaram in the Lok Sabha led to adjournments and loss of four work hours on Tuesday, an aggressive and united opposition again forced both houses of parliament to adjourn without transacting much business for the second day Wednesday.
Lok Sabha members from the Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh, including from the ruling Congress, flashed placards demanding a separate state and Shiv Sena members sought a hike in cotton rates for farmers in Maharashtra .
The Left parties have been asking Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to consider their adjournment motion on price rise even as the government had agreed to have a discussion on inflation under rule 193 that doesn’t entail voting.
The Rajya Sabha was also adjourned for the day after the suspension of question hour in the morning due to noisy protests.
Prime Miniser Manmohan Singh, ahead of the parliament’s sitting Tuesday, expressed the hope that all political parties “realise that we have important legislation to discuss in the winter session” and that it runs smoothly.
The government has indicated it would like to complete the legislative business relating to bills on the Lokpal, whistle blowers protection, judicial accountability, pension fund, direct taxes, and goods and services tax bills in the winter session that concludes Dec 21.