More Stories

Informist, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – Members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance on Tuesday submitted a no-confidence motion against Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar over his conduct as chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said the parties of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc submitted the motion for the “extremely partisan manner in which he (Dhankhar) has been conducting the proceedings” of the Upper House.

 

“It has been a very painful decision for the I.N.D.I.A. parties to take, but in the interests of parliamentary democracy they have had to take this step," Jairam wrote on social media site X. "The motion has just been submitted to the Secretary General of the Rajya Sabha.”

 

The motion with the signatures of more than 50 members of the Upper House was submitted at the Rajya Sabha secretariat, a Trinamool Congress member said. Another member familiar with the developments said the floor leaders of the opposition parties did not sign the motion. The member said eight members from the Trinamool Congress, three members from the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and two from the Aam Aadmi Party were among the signatories.

 

The opposition bloc moved the motion under Article 67(B) of the Constitution. The article states that a vice-president may be removed from office by a resolution of the Council of States passed by a majority of all the members of the council and agreed to by the House of the People. It also states that the resolution can only be moved after at least 14 days' notice has been given of the intention to move such a resolution.

 

With just 10 days left for the Winter Session of Parliament to conclude, the motion is unlikely to come up in the House. The Winter Session is scheduled to end on Dec. 20. Earlier, the Opposition had planned to bring a no-confidence motion against Dhankhar during the Budget-cum-Monsoon session this year, but did not do so as the session closed ahead of schedule.

 

Both Houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day Tuesday amid disruptions by members of the ruling party and the Opposition.

 

On Monday, the opposition parties criticised Dhankhar for what they called his partial approach in managing the proceedings. Opposition members accused Dhankhar of allowing Bharatiya Janata Party members to speak in the House on the issue of alleged links between American billionaire philanthropist and investor George Soros and the Congress after having rejected their notices under Rule 267 for discussion on the same issue.

 

When the House was convened in the morning, Dhankhar announced that he had received 11 notices under Rule 267 of parliamentary procedure seeking adjournment of listed business to hold discussion on multiple issues, including “rising threats to national security due to alleged nexus between a political party and some organisations working against India”, moved by members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance. Dhankhar said he had rejected all the notices.

 

However, chaos erupted in the House as BJP members resorted to sloganeering against the Congress. BJP members who had moved the notices that were turned down by the Rajya Sabha chairman raised the issue again during Zero Hour, pressing for a discussion.

 

At this point, Dhankhar asked Union Minister and Leader of the House J.P. Nadda to speak on the disruptions. However, Nadda, while advocating for peaceful proceedings in the House, said there should be a discussion on the alleged links between Soros and the Congress. Following his remark, Dhankhar allowed several other BJP members, including Sudhanshu Trivedi, Laxmikant Vajpayee, and Bhubaneswar Kalita, to speak in the House. All the members accused the Congress of threatening national security and having links with Soros.

 

The Congress strongly objected to the chairman's conduct. Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge asked how the chairman was allowing the ruling party members to raise the issue when he had rejected their notices. Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh said, "Never expected this from you. Under which rule you allow the ruling party members to speak? You’re doing partiality."  End

 

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2024. All rights reserved.