If Monday (September 18), the last working day of the old Parliament building — now rechristened “Samvidhan Sadan” — was about nostalgia and memories, Tuesday (September 19) brought with it all the excitement of a new school term in the new Parliament building.
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Members of Parliament took time to look around as they entered the building and their respective Houses, clicking selfies and exploring the jazzy new computers at each desk.
In fact, the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhineeyum or the Women’s Reservation Bill was circulated online before its introduction, when the Opposition raised the point that they had not received a copy of the Bill. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey hurried over to the Opposition benches to help them access the online copy, after which their objection was to the specific features of the Bill, and the fact that a decadal census and the delimitation of new seats will have to take place before the reservations can become operational.
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‘MPs need a tour’
As the session in the Lok Sabha was to formally begin at 1:15 p.m. — bang in the middle of lunch and immediately after the ceremonial exit from the Central Hall of Parliament — a couple of MPs driven by hunger pangs went in search of canteen facilities and had to run around a bit before they located it. “The first thing that needs to be done is for MPs to be given a tour of the place, so that we know where everything is,” said one Opposition MP.
Another MP was seen opening a paper layout of the Lok Sabha to better identify the seat allocations of various parties.
Women in the gallery
At this historic first session of the Lok Sabha in the new building, the visitors’ gallery was almost full of women gathered to witness the tabling of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhineeyum, including actresses Kangana Ranaut and Esha Gupta, fashion designer Rina Dhaka, and wrestler Geetika Jakhar. A group of women visitors in the galleries raised slogans in praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi but, in keeping with the rules of decorum while in the Houses of Parliament, Union Ministers Gajendra Shekhawat and Anurag Thakur were sent to ensure that this did not happen again, even as the Opposition benches pointed out that the sloganeering was unseemly.
There were protests from Opposition benches as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhineeyum was being introduced. The Rajya Sabha too saw a sharp exchange between Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Clearly, the proceedings may have been in a new House, but the spirit of combat was carried over from the old one.