If Prime Minister Narendra Modi can do video-conferencing with Chief Ministers through a 'secure platform', then Parliamentary Standing Committees should also be able to do so, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma, who heads the Standing Committee on Home Affairs, is learnt to have said in a note to Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu .
Mr Sharma’s note on Monday came after the Rajya Sabha secretariat didn't approve of his plan to hold a meeting of the Standing Committee through video-conferencing citing concerns regarding “secure online platform”.
Mr Sharma had scheduled a meeting on April 28 (Tuesday) where he had planned to speak to Home Ministry officials regarding the lockdown and had suggested a virtual meeting due to travel restrictions during the on-going lockdown. However, security concerns put paid to the meeting.
Mr Sharma is now learnt to have asked the Rajya Sabha secretariat to tell the government to ‘organise a secure platform for the Committees’.
The Deputy Leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha, in his note, also mentioned how parliamentary committees in Britain as well as Senate Committees and House Committees in the United States have been functioning.
The former union minister for commerce and industry is learnt to have argued that it is crucial for the Home Affairs Committee to speak to the officials as the Ministry of Home Affairs is the nodal ministry for coordinating with the State Governments, organizing the relief efforts and a roadmap towards a stage-wise opening of the lockdown.
"I have asked the Chairman to reconsider his decision,"Mr Sharma told The Hindu but declined to comment on the contents of his letter to Mr Naidu.
Interestingly, on April 21, the day when the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee had convened his Committee's meeting, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had held a video-conferencing with the presiding officers of the Legislative Assemblies.
And in that meeting, Mr. Birla had urged legislative assemblies to adopt to technology for routine work. “Assemblies and Parliament must adopt technology for functioning more effectively,” Mr. Birla had said.
