Covid excuse to quarantine Question Hour -The move, which deprives the House of its lone device to exercise some control over the executive, prompted Opposition protests

Anita Joshua   |   TT   |   New Delhi   |  03.09.20  :  The self-avowedly muscular Narendra Modi government has used the pandemic as a plea to scrap Question Hour for the upcoming Parliament session, depriving the House of its lone device to exercise some control over the executive and prompting Opposition protests.
The publication of a provisional calendar for the fortnight-long session, starting September 14, has confirmed weeks of speculation about the suspension of Question Hour, which an explanatory note on the Rajya Sabha website says “gives the institution of Parliament the great significance it possesses”.
Question Hour represents the first hour of a day’s sitting, when MPs can raise governance-related queries that the ministers concerned are obligated to answer, orally or in writing.
As Opposition members and social media users slammed the government move as a gag on democracy, parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi was quoted in the evening by ANI as saying: “I have suggested Lok Sabha Speaker & Rajya Sabha Chairman to keep the duration of the Zero Hour at 30 minutes. They will take the final decision. Govt is ready to have discussions on every issue. We have also requested the Speaker to take un-starred questions.”
However, Zero Hour had already been curtailed to 30 minutes, and un-starred questions do not require oral answers from the ministers — only written answers are circulated among members.
During Zero Hour, ministers are not compelled by law to respond even if they are in the House when an issue is raised.
Joshi was quoted as saying that the leaders of all the Opposition parties barring Trinamul had agreed to the scrapping of Question Hour.
However, the Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, had written to the Speaker last week urging him to ensure there was no curtailment of Question Hour or Zero Hour.
The government has argued that conducting Question Hour would require officials to visit the Parliament complex to assist their ministers, increasing the number of people on the premises.
However, Trinamul Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien underlined that ministers can be briefed via videoconferencing too. Besides, the number of questions to be taken up daily during Question Hour can be reduced from the current 20, it was suggested.
The Opposition has a raft of questions for the government — from the management of the Covid crisis and the Chinese incursions to the economy and the PM Cares Fund — and had been hoping to get a few answers, however wishy-washy.
Another of the government’s arguments — that there wasn’t enough time for Question Hour during a session hamstrung by Covid-related restrictions — too faced a challenge from O’Brien.
The quizmaster turned politician did some quick research and calculation to show that not only was a regular session without Question Hour unprecedented, there was enough time to accommodate it despite all the curbs.
Parliament usually functions for 30 hours in a five-day week, working six hours a day — two hours before lunch and four in the afternoon. This coming session, the two Houses will function four hours a day and sit during the weekends too, making it a 28-hour week.
With private members’ business too having been done away with, O’Brien underlined that the upcoming session had actually gained an extra 30 minutes.
Past sessions without Question Hour, O’Brien said, were sessions called for special purposes like the 1962 Chinese aggression, proclamation of the Emergency, and enactment of the 44th Amendment to undo many of the decisions taken during the Emergency.
Others protested too. “I said four months ago that strongmen leaders would use the excuse of the pandemic to stifle democracy & dissent. The notification for the delayed Parliament session blandly announces there will be no Question Hour. How can this be justified in the name of keeping us safe?” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor tweeted.
“Questioning the government is the oxygen of parliamentary democracy. This Govt seeks to reduce Parliament to a notice-board & uses its crushing majority as a rubber stamp for whatever it wants to pass. The one mechanism to promote accountability has now been done away with.”
The DMK’s Kanimozhi said: “BJP govt’s decision to suspend the Question Hour for an entire session conveys just one message — ‘Even elected representatives have no right to question the government’.”
Trinamul Lok Sabha member Mahua Moitra linked the government decision to the general atmosphere of intolerance towards any questioning in the country.
“Asking questions in court is contempt. Asking questions outside Parliament is sedition. And now asking questions inside Parliament is forbidden,” she tweeted.