The Union Cabinet on Saturday recommended dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha, drawing curtains to the term of the House which will go down in history as the most disrupted and wasted in Independent India.
The Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, met for the last time and decided to recommend dissolution of the current term of the Lok Sabha, a day after the results of the 16th Lok Sabha were out.
The recommendation was then handed over to President Pranab Mukherjee.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath later said the process to form the next Lok Sabha will commence after the Election Commission sends the notification of the newly-elected members.
“Once the President receives the list from the Election Commission, the President will take an appropriate decision,” he said.
The outgoing term of the House was the most disrupted and wasted in Independent India, with pepper spray incident in the last session marking a new low in parliamentary conduct.
Disruptions have been the order of the day and two years back an entire session was washed out after opposition BJP insisted on its demand for Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the 2G spectrum scam. This was unprecedented.
There was also uproar galore on the demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the coal block allocation scam.
Storm over Telangana led to several unprecedented developments in the last session of the House which had 13 sittings. Even though Speaker Meira Kumar wanted a “grand finale” to the Lok Sabha it was not to be.
As many as 16 members from Seemandhra region were suspended ahead of the passage of Telangana bill. The bill to divide Andhra Pradesh tested the patience of the House, unlike any other issue in recent times. Supporters and opponents of separate Telangana were at loggerheads on the bill at the drop of a hat.
The historic bill creating the 29th state of India was passed in the last week of the last session of the Lok Sabha but after much controversies, confusion and commotion.
The 15th Lok Sabha had also seen immediate disqualification of RJD chief Lalu Prasad and JD(U) MP Jagdish Sharma after their conviction in the fodder scam.
Theirs was the first disqualification from the Lok Sabha after the Supreme Court struck down a provision that protects a convicted lawmaker from disqualification on the ground of pendency of appeal in higher courts.
The 15th Lok Sabha also witnessed three women adorning top posts. The head of the ruling dispensation Sonia Gandhi, Speaker Meira Kumar and Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj. While Ms. Gandhi and Ms. Swaraj succeded in returning to the 16th Lok Sabha, Ms. Kumar was defeated in her traditional seat of Sasaram.
Even though scams and scandals, including the Commonwealth Games and Adarsh Housing, led to disruptions, the House also created history by legislating landmark laws.
The Food Security bill, which seeks to provide cheap foodgrains to 67 per cent of the poor people of the country-some 80 crore people, was cleared during the tenure of the outgoing Lok Sabha.
The Land Acquisition bill, which will give a better price to the farmer for his land and also a say in the matter, was also adopted by the House.
Amid a campaign against corruption, the House also adopted the Lokpal bill, an issue which had been pending for the last four decades. The Women’s Reservation bill, however, could not pass muster of the House despite being through the Rajya Sabha by the use of marshals.
