Monsoon session ends, lower house passes 14 bills

The Monsoon Session also witnessed the elections to the posts of the President and the Vice President of the country.

New Delhi, Aug 11: The 19-day Monsoon Session of Parliament concluded on Friday. In this short session, both Houses were expected to pass more than 25 Bills on a range of subjects. But in Lok Sabha alone, after 19 sittings, saw the passage of 14 legislation, including the Banking (Amendment) Bill and the suspension of six Congress members for "highly unbecoming" behaviour.

The Monsoon Session also witnessed the elections to the posts of the President and the Vice President of the country. Lok Sabha worked for approximately 70 per cent of its scheduled time, and Rajya Sabha for about 73 per cent.

The items on the government's priority list were four Bills to replace Ordinances promulgated by the President during the inter-session period. Three of these were related to the Goods and Services Tax regime; one was on the stressed assets of banks.

Heated debate and verbal duels were witnessed between the opposition and treasury benches during the session on vital issues like cow-lynching and mob-violence, agrarian crisis and the attack on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat allegedly by BJP workers.

A special discussion was also held on 75th Anniversary on the Quit India Movement.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said the House sat for 71 hours during the Monsoon Session. She said 29.58 hours were wasted due to disruptions, but the House tried to compensate it by sitting for 10.36 extra hours.

Starred questions numbering 63 were given oral answers and 4370 unstarred questions were given written responses. Ministers laid 1270 statements during the session, while members also introduced 28 Private Members Bills in the House.

Crucial legislations like the Company (Amendents) Act 2016 and the NABARD (Amendment) Act 2017 were also passed by the Lok Sabha.

The session saw six Congress MPs getting suspended for five days for hurling papers at the Chair, termed as "highly unbecoming" behaviour. The suspended Congress members were Gaurav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and M K Raghavan.

OneIndia News (with agency inputs)