Parliament Session Kicks Off Tomorrow: The 18th Lok Sabha began functioning with the swearing-in of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 9. The first session of the Lok Sabha will begin on June 24. It will continue till July 3. There will be a total of 8 meetings in 10 days (holiday on 29-30 June). First of all, Protem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab will go to Rashtrapati Bhavan and take oath. After this, he will reach Lok Sabha at 11 am.
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The Protem Speaker will administer the oath to the new MPs on the first two days, i.e. on 24 and 25 June. After this, the Lok Sabha Speaker will be elected on 26 June.
The 264th session of the Rajya Sabha will begin on June 27. On the same day, President Draupadi Murmu will address the joint session of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. After this, Prime Minister Modi will speak.
On the last two days of the session, the government will move a motion of thanks on the President’s address and both houses will discuss it. For the first time in 10 years, PM Modi will face a strong opposition.
This time the opposition can create a ruckus on the allegations of irregularities in the NEET exam last week, three criminal laws, and irregularities in the stock market after the Lok Sabha elections.
Read in detail what will happen in the 10 days of Parliament session…
June 24-25: Pro tem speaker will administer oath to new MPs
1- The post of the Speaker becomes vacant just before the first meeting of the new Lok Sabha. The President elects a Pro-tem Speaker to conduct the proceedings of the Lok Sabha.
2- The Protem Speaker presides over the first meeting of the Lok Sabha. Usually the senior-most member of the House (on the basis of victory in the election) is appointed to this post.
3- The pro tem speaker takes oath in front of the President on the first day of the session. Then administers oath to the new MPs. He runs the Parliament permanently. His service ends with the election of a new speaker.
4- This time, BJP’s 7-time consecutive MP from Odisha, Bhartruhari Mahtab, has become the Protem Speaker. Congress had demanded that its 8-time MP Kodikunnil Suresh be made the Speaker. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that Congress MPs have not won continuously, so their seniority does not become a basis.
5- The President has appointed 5 MPs as presiding officers to assist the Protem Speaker. These include K. Suresh (Congress), Sudip Bandopadhyay (TMC), TR Balu (DMK) and Radha Mohan Singh, Faggan Singh Kulaste from BJP. All the three opposition MPs withdrew their names on June 22 in protest against the appointment of the Protem Speaker.
How will jailed MPs take oath?
- Parole is given to elected representatives in jail to take oath. For this, the Parliament Secretariat has to first inform the jail administration. It is informed that the MP who is taking oath is in your jail, he should be given permission to come to Parliament and take oath.
- After taking the oath, the MPs go back to jail. However, they have to inform the Speaker in writing that they will not be able to participate in the proceedings of the House.
June 26: Lok Sabha speaker will be elected
BJP: A meeting of ministers was held at the residence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on 17-18 June. There was also a discussion about the Lok Sabha Speaker. BJP wants the Speaker to be from their party. BJP can make Om Birla the Speaker for the second time. Birla, an MP from Kota, Rajasthan, was the Lok Sabha Speaker last time as well.
NDA: There was a demand between BJP’s allies JDU and TDP regarding the post of Speaker. Later JDU has announced that it will support any decision of BJP. TDP has advocated for the NDA candidate. That is, it has refrained from saying anything openly right now.
Opposition: INDIA Block will demand the post of Deputy Speaker this time. There is a discussion that if the opposition does not get the post of Deputy Speaker, then the opposition camp will field its own candidate for the post of Speaker. There has been a tradition of giving the post of Deputy Speaker to the opposition. In the 16th Lok Sabha, this post was given to Thambidurai of AIADMK, who was part of NDA. Whereas, the post remained vacant in the 17th Lok Sabha.
Possibility of conflict: BJP will propose the name of its candidate to the opposition for consensus on the post of Speaker. If the opposition does not agree, it will field its own candidate. In such a situation, an election will have to be held for the Speaker.
27 June: 264th session of Rajya Sabha begins, President Draupadi Murmu’s address
On 27 June, President Draupadi Murmu will deliver the address in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at 11 am. In this, she will present the roadmap of the central government’s program for the next 5 years. In the 17th Lok Sabha, then President Ramnath Kovind addressed both the houses for 1 hour.
The 264th session of Rajya Sabha will begin on this day. This year, 56 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states fell vacant. Candidates won 41 seats out of which unopposed. In the voting held for 15 seats in February, BJP won 8 seats in UP, SP got 2 seats. In Karnataka, Congress got 3 seats, BJP got 1. One seat from Himachal also went to BJP.
1-3 July: Discussion on Motion of Thanks in both the Houses of Parliament
After the President’s address, the Motion of Thanks will be discussed in both the Houses of Parliament. The opposition will try to corner the government on the NEET exam scam, UGC NET exam cancellation and Agniveer Yojana. After this, the Prime Minister will reply to the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address in both the Houses of Parliament.
The session will be 40 days shorter
Compared to the previous 17th Lok Sabha, the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha is 40 days shorter. In 2019, Narendra Modi took oath as the Prime Minister on 30 May and the first session of Parliament began on 17 June. However, this also included the budget session of the new government. This time the PM was sworn in on 9 June and the first session began 15 days later.
After 10 years, Congress will get the post of Leader of Opposition
This time there will be a Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha. The post of Leader of Opposition is vacant in Lok Sabha for the last 10 years, because since 2014, no opposition party has won 54 MPs. Under the Mavalankar rule, to become the Leader of Opposition, it is necessary to have 10% of the total number of 543 MPs in the Lok Sabha, i.e. 54 MPs.
In the 16th Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge was the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party with 44 MPs, but he did not have the status of Leader of Opposition (LOP). In the 17th Lok Sabha, 52 MPs were led by Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary. He also did not have powers like the cabinet.
