Yechury calls for law to ensure Parliament sits for 100 days a year

Yechury said such a law will ensure that the government of the day was held accountable for its actions and policies.

Bhopal, Jul 11: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday called for a law to ensure Parliament sat for at least 100 days a year to check "growing disinterest and negligence" towards legislative work.

Yechury said the two chambers of Parlament have not had more than 60-70 working days in the last 2-3 years.

"There is a need to frame a law which mandates for at least 100 days of active presence of members when Parliament is in session. Then only Parliament would function smoothly. This is absolutely necessary to arrest the growing trend of disinterest and negligence towards legislative work," Yechury said.

"In contrast, the British Parliament sits for 200 days in a year," he said while delivering 'Comrade Shailendra Shelly Memorial Lecture' here last night.

Yechury said such a law will ensure that the government of the day was held accountable for its actions and policies as then members would have enough time to deliberate on key issues. He criticised the Modi government's economic policies, saying those were responsible for the widening disparity between the rich and the poor.

Yechury said ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had promised to create two crore jobs every year if voted to power. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who completed three years in office in May, failed to deliver on the promise, he said.

"Going by the promise, by now the government should have provided 6 crore jobs, but figures tell a different story," he said.

The CPI(M) leader said while farmers led a "miserable" life and were driven to commit suicide, the debt of capitalists were being waived.

"Capitalists are not returning Rs 11 lakh crore loan taken by them (from banks) but nobody is talking about it. In fact, these are being waived, while farmers are being harassed to pay back small loans," Yechury said.

Referring to a spate of incidents of vigilantism in the name of cow protection, he demanded that state governments take strong action against perpetrators of such incidents.

PTI