The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Sunday directed their MPs not to attend the ongoing budget session of Parliament in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
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“Request all MPs of NCP – LS & RS not to go back to Delhi. Please stay where you are and assist Govt Agencies help citizens to fight #Coronavirus pandemic,” party president Sharad Pawar tweeted.
Late in the night, Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said in a tweet that party MPs would not be present in Parliament from Monday.
“Keeping the Covid-19 situation in mind, all ShivSena MPs won’t be attending Parliament from today. The decision has been taken by our Party Chief and honourable CM Uddhav Thackeray for helping the government to fight this Pandemic. @CMOMaharashtra @narendramodi,” he tweeted.
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The NCP and the Sena are second and third regional parties to do so after Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee issued similar instructions to its party leaders.
An NCP MP from Lok Sabha, who did not wish to be named, said it is deplorable on part of the Union government to not call off the budget session. “We have several State governments, including that of Maharashtra, which have abruptly ended their budget session due to the spread of COVID-19. At any given point, more than 1,500 people are in presence in Parliament and when Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself is advocating social distancing, it was the responsibility of the Centre to cancel the session last week.”
The NCP leader also said that a number of senior MPs had requested Mr. Modi to take business of ‘vote on account’ last Tuesday itself. “Instead of budget-related business, the government chose to go ahead with a Bill related to Ayurveda. That was not an urgency. The budget and the pandemic spreading in India is an urgency. Had we discussed vote on account last week, we could have wrapped up the session then.”
“An MP too is a human being and may get infected. Therefore, we decided about the safety of our MPs,” the leader said.