After the winter session of Parliament concluded, Congress alleged on Friday that the session started with the ruling party defaming Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and ended with “insulting Mahatma Gandhi” and during this period Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was also attacked. Party general secretary Jairam Ramesh also claimed that it was not a winter session but a “pollution session” and that the government had shied away from discussing air pollution, which believes that air pollution has no effect on the lungs.
After the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament were adjourned indefinitely, Ramesh told reporters, “We were told in the all-party meeting that 14 bills would be introduced, out of which two bills were to be a formality. That is, information was given about a total of 12 bills. But out of these, five bills were not brought.” He said that ‘VB Ji Ram Ji Bill’ was introduced in the last two days.
The Ji Ram Ji Bill was discussed in the Lok Sabha till late night on Wednesday and passed on Thursday, whereas in the Rajya Sabha it was passed late on December 18 after a discussion of more than six hours yesterday. Ramesh claimed, “This session started with the insult of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore… History was distorted during the discussion on Vande Mataram.” He said that the ruling party forgot that two stanzas of Vande Mataram were accepted as the national song on Tagore’s suggestion.
In the Lok Sabha, the discussion on the occasion of completion of 150 years of Vande Mataram started with the address of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while in the Rajya Sabha, the discussion was started by Home Minister Amit Shah. Ramesh said that the ruling party also insulted the country’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Citing the Ji Ram Ji Bill, he alleged that the session ended with the insult of Mahatma Gandhi. Ramesh said that the opposition had demanded a discussion on air pollution, but it was ignored.
He said, “We had informed the government that there should be a discussion on air pollution. We hoped that the discussion would take place today, but it did not happen.”
