The Budget session of the Rajya Sabha has been rescheduled and will conclude two days before schedule. The decision in this regard was taken at a meeting of Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu with the floor leaders of all the parties of the upper house.
The first part of the session will now conclude on February 13, with the House meeting on that Saturday, instead of February 15.
In the monsoon session of Parliament, too, the two houses had sat over the weekend. But in a loosening the COVID-19 protocol, this time, the weekend break for both the houses had been restored. The schedule, said sources, has been changed in accordance with the members’ request, as it gives the Standing Committees more time to peruse the Budget and come up with their reports before the start of the second part of the session.
The floor leaders, according to sources, asked for more time to discuss the motion of thanks to the President and the General Budget. Mr. Naidu also told Ministers keep their speeches brief when moving a Bill for consideration, or while replying at the end of the debates, so that members got more time to speak.
Allocation of sufficient time for members of small parties and groups in the house was also discussed. “Mr. Naidu has assured that the best possible effort will be made to give a reasonable amount of time for members of such parties,” one of the members who attended the meeting said.
The meeting was attended the Ministers of Parliamentary Affairs, Finance, External Affairs, Railways, and Housing and Urban Affairs; the Leader of the Rajya Sabha Thawar Chand Gehlot; the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad; and Congress leaders Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh. Others who attended included former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav, Biju Janata Dal leader Prasana Acharaya, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader A. Navneeth Krishnan, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Tiruchi Siva, Janata Dal-United leader R.C.P. Singh, Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader Dr. K. Keshava Rao, YSR Congress leader A.Vijayasai Reddy, Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Elamaram Kareem, and Telugu Desam Party leader Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar.
