Economy, reservation policies and youth’s well-being headlined discussions on the eighth day of the Parliament session. The Lower House debated Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s White Paper on the UPA regime’s failures, and four Bills were passed in the Upper House.
The BJP has issued a three-line whip to party MPs to be present in both Houses tomorrow to support the government’s stand. Proceedings will resume on the final day of the Parliament session, on February 10 at 11 a.m.
Lok Sabha
In the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the ‘White Paper’, introduced in the Rajya Sabha on February 8. In her opening remarks, Ms. Sitharaman said the UPA regime left the economy in a critical state, and lacked both neeyat and niyam (intention and adherence to rules). While the Common Wealth Games (CWG) during the UPA regime brought disrepute, the G20 presidency under the Modi Government earned India global respect, the Minister said. “Ten years of one government with some crisis and 10 years of a different government with different crisis... The Paper is a record for posterity… for the youth so that they know the effort it took for a PM with a vision to restore India to its glory,” Ms. Sitharaman said.
On a similar note, MP Nishikant Dubey raised the issue of nepotism, said the Congress was blind to corruption, and termed the period between 2004 and 2014 as ‘loot raj’. In contrast, the BJP’s tenure qualified as ‘Ram raj’. BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad also accused the Congress of not recognising the achievements of their own Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, and lauded the Modi Government for conferring the Bharat Ratna to the late politician. Countering favouritism claims, Mr. Prasad questioned why the Adani Group remained in business with Rajasthan, Kerala or West Bengal governments, where the Congress or its allies are in power.
Opposition’s N.K. Premachandran and AITC MP Saugata Ray had earlier moved substitute motions to disapprove the ‘White Paper’, calling it a political attempt to ignore the contributions of the previous UPA government and experts. Opposition MPs, including NCP’s Supriya Sule and Congress’s Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, also questioned the timing of the ‘White Paper’. Mr. Chowdhury called the paper “a granary of concoctions and a mountain of lies”. AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi asked the government to put out a white paper detailing how many Muslims had been killed due to mob lynching between 2014 and 2024, and how many houses had been razed by bulldozers. Opposition MPs also attacked the Modi government for failing to highlight the current economic indices on unemployment, consumer demand, poverty, fiscal deficit, and per capita income, and instead choosing to hyper-fixate on the scams in the UPA era. Moreover, listing UPA’s achievements related to MGNREGA, Congress MP Manish Tewari said, “You used to say it is the scheme of digging and filling holes… [but] this scheme has saved you” from anarchy.
In response to the Opposition’s claim of this being a “political manifesto”, Ms. Sitharaman said a white paper was not in the national interest in 2014-15. Her reply focused on how the UPA regime’s governance compromised national security, hindered the environment ministry’s development and poor leadership had failed the country. There was a critical shortage of equipment in 2014; in contrast, the defence budget had doubled to Rs. 6.22 lakh crore in 2024-25 and the increase of defence capital budget from Rs. 86,000 crores to Rs. 1.72 lakh crores. Ms. Sitharaman also called Sonia Gandhi the Super Prime Minister, an extra-constitutional and unaccountable person.
The white paper was a serious document, with serious evidence, to show the 10 years of work to get the economy back on the rails and also progress, Ms. Sitharaman said. For instance, she cited the example of the falling unemployment rate, and the implementation of Aaddhar, which the Congress government had rejected earlier. Following Ms. Sitharaman’s reply, MP N.K Premachandran’s motion disapproving the white paper was put to a voice vote and rejected, as was a similar motion by MP Sougata Ray.
Rajya Sabha
The Rajya Sabha proceedings began at 11 a.m. Members laid papers on the table. All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) MP Saket Gokhale began by highlighting the issue of imposition of Hindi on the citizens of the country, an “affront to the federal structure of the Constitution”, he said. Mr. Gokhale was referring to the Meghalaya Governor addressing the State Assembly in Hindi, even as the State’s spoken language is English. Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, in response, said diverse languages in the country constitute the basic framework. Mr. Dhankhar later called on the Members to maintain decorum as they tried to enter the Well of the House.
Mr. Dhankhar announced the government’s decision to confer the Bharat Ratna on former Prime Ministers Chaudhary Charan Singh and P.V. Narasimha Rao, and agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan. Ministers raised sundry issues in the Upper House. MPs Vikramjit Singh Sahney and Naresh Bansal said the problem of drug addiction among youth is on the rise in the country. Responding to a question by MP Jaya Bachchan of Samajwadi Party, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government is amending the intermediary IT rules. “...there is a significant responsibility bestowed on the social media platforms so that they can detect deep fakes, they can detect misinformation and take early action,” he said.
The Upper House passed three Jammu and Kashmir reservation Bills, previously cleared by Lok Sabha. These include the Jammu and Kashmir Local Bodies Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024; the Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Castes Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024; the Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024. Discussions, unfolding over three hours, saw Opposition MPs largely supporting the reservations, but pointed out that the government’s reservation policies have not translated into welfare for SCs, STs and OBCs in the country. Moreover, the government has specified no timeline for conducting local body polls and restoring its status as a state, despite Supreme Court orders, they said. CPI(M) MP John Brittas and INC’s Neeraj Dangi also drew attention to the ongoing protests in Ladakh, “[People] are urging the government to give statehood...their position in the erstwhile J&K was better than the current status,” Mr. Brittas said. Jawhar Sircar of AITC said only selective Muslim tribes have been brought into the amended legislation, but Muslims are debarred from large in availing SC and ST facilities. “You burned [Adivasis and tribals] when they were Hindus, you boiled them now that they have left Hinduism,” said Mr. Sircar.
To Mr. Sircar’s point about excluding Muslims and Christian SCs and STs, Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar said anyone who converts from the Hindu or Sikh religion is ineligible for a reservation because untouchability is found only among Hindus. MoS Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, in response, listed different measures the Modi Government has taken to uplift reserved classes in education, employment and government institutes. The Opposition is “diverting” attention from the Bills, Mr. Rai said. About Article 370 abrogation, he said, “there is no substance or truth to it”. Minister of Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda, who introduced the SC and ST reservation Bills, said just like the Ayodhya temple inauguration brought Ram Lalla to his birthplace, Article 370 abrogation brought justice to the people of J&K, he says, inviting protests from Opposition members.
The three reservation Bills were discussed and passed by voice vote, with support from across party lines.
The Upper House also took up the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, which aims to curb malpractices and irregularities in competitive examinations. Replying to the discussion on the Bill in the Upper House, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said the Bill is meant to be a deterrent, to ensure “the meritorious students are not sacrificed at the altar of organised crime”. Most MPs supported the Bill but raised concerns about implementation and transparency. INC MP Amee Yajnik said that the “much-needed” Bill has come at a very late stage – the NDA Government, which rides on the wave of digitalisation, should have made proactively established platforms to eliminate chances of malpractice. She also suggested that cheating should be scrutinised as a specialised offence. All suggested amendments were rejected, and the Bill was subsequently passed via voice vote.
(Compiled by Sumeda, Sindhu Nagaraj, Sruthi Darbhamulla, Suchitra Karthikeyan, Priyali Prakash and Saumya Kalia)
