In a Parliament session bitterly divided over the Ishrat issue and the imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarakhand, opposition to the Delhi government’s odd-even rule has united the treasury and opposition benches; cutting across party lines, Members of Parliament demanded that they be exempt from the rule while Parliament was in session.
Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha P. J. Kurien has directed Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to take up the exemption issue with the Delhi government.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP and dissident leader Pappu Yadav set the ball rolling by raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha. He said the scheme was an attempt by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejrwal to get some “cheap popularity” and would not help CNG companies and companies manufacturing buses and cars and would hardly reduce pollution.
Citing an IIT-Kanpur study, he said the pollution from cars was a mere five per cent and the Delhi government had failed to address other issues which contribute to the remaining 95 per cent of pollution.
In the Rajya Sabha, Samajwadi Party MP Naresh Agrawal demanded that MPs be exempt from the scheme as it came in the way of an MP discharging his/her duty.
“Already we hear a committee meeting (departmental standing committee of Parliament) was delayed by over an hour as MPs were stranded on the roads and did not know just what to do,” he said.
He ridiculed the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi saying the latest scheme was an outcome of its penchant for new rules.
“Those days were not far when rules will be framed to prescribe A and B will walk on the road on a particular day and C and D some other day. Only women will use the road one day and the next day only men,” he said.
Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress Deputy Leader Anand Sharma backed the views saying the scheme was coming in the way of MPs discharging their duties.
AAP MP Bhagwant Mann, one of the nine MPs who used the six special buses provided by the Delhi government to ferry MPs to Parliament to circumvent the odd-even rule, told The Hindu , “It is going to be difficult, but it is for the greater common good.”
“MPs are also part of society and they also need to participate in policies for the betterment of the environment,” he said.
MP specials run emptyThe taxpayer will pay over Rs. 11,000 for each of the nine MPs who took public transport to reach the Parliament on Monday. Six Delhi Transport Corporation buses which were converted to MP Specials to ferry even number car-owning MPs here on the first day of Parliament serviced a total of nine MPs throughout the day: eight in the morning and one in the evening after both Houses of Parliament adjourned.
