Pawan Kumar Bansal handles the portfolios of Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resources in the UPA government.

In this Idea Exchange moderated by Special Correspondent Maneesh Chhibber, Bansal speaks about discipline in

Parliament, the Women's Reservation Bill and Congress-BJP ties in the House

MANEESH CHHIBBER: As Parliamentary Affairs Minister, what is your primary concern in the new Lok Sabha?

I suppose my primary concern is that the Lok Sabha sets new standards in its functioning. As the Prime Minister has said, the mandate of the people is clear and the people do expect something from Parliament. We’ve been doing our assigned work but the number of days and hours spent in transacting business has been coming down over the years. The sound of democracy has prevailed over the reason of democracy. That is what we have to change. It will be our aim, while taking the Opposition along, to meet the expectations of the people. The Prime Minister said that we hope to make a new beginning in Parliament. When we had the last short session in early June, the election of the Speaker went off extremely well. There was total cooperation between the government and the BJP and other Opposition parties — they said they’d play a constructive role as the Opposition. This week, we begin the main Budget session. The two Houses will meet on July 2, and they will adjourn on August 7. The primary business would be the passing of the Budget and we would like to take up other legislation too. A very important Bill is the Women’s Reservation Bill. I’m not very sure it will be taken up because it is with the Standing Committee on Personnel, Law and Justice. The other important legislation we have is the one related to amendments in the Land Acquisition Act. There is a totally changed opinion in the country now about the right of the government to acquire land. The position is that the farmers must have their due share from the proceeds that follow from any economic activity on that land. Along with that is the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill—those were passed by the Lok Sabha towards the end of the last session but in the Rajya Sabha, the Bills could not be presented and have, therefore, lapsed. We are very keen to bring these Bills to the House immediately.

... contd.