Crucial question hour dropped from Parliament's monsoon session, outrage follows

Last week, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla held a meeting with the officials of the Health Ministry, ICMR, AIIMS, DRDO, and Delhi government, to understand how the monsoon session would be convened amid surging coronavirus numbers.

It was decided that all MPs and staffers would be tested 72 hours before the session starts. Arrangements for zero-touch security checks are also being made.

Days after the meeting, finer details on how the monsoon session will be conducted emerged. As per reports, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will be convened in two shifts to minimize crowding and honor social distancing.

On the first day, i.e., September 14, Lok Sabha will sit from 9 am to 1 pm; and Rajya Sabha from 3 pm to 7 pm.

While the question hour has been done away with, the zero hour would be held. However, the time duration has been brought down to 30 minutes.

Expressing disdain over this move, Trinamool's Derek O'Brien said the pandemic was being used as an excuse to murder democracy.

Brien also said this was the first time since 1950 that question hour has been removed.

Congress' Shashi Tharoor had similar concerns. "I said four months ago that strongmen leaders would use the excuse of the pandemic to stifle democracy and dissent," the Lok Sabha representative from Thiruvananthapuram said.

"Questioning the government is the oxygen of parliamentary democracy. This government seeks to reduce Parliament to a notice-board," one of his tweets read.

He also asked how is this move justifiable.

Earlier when speculations suggested the same, Congress' leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to Birla urging him to not curtail the question hour.

He told Birla that acting against question hour would "not be in the interest of elected members," especially during the current crisis.

Appreciating the steps Birla took for the session, Chowdhury asked him to consider this request as well.