Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that this was the first time in 70 years that no Cabinet Minister had replied to questions posed by members during the Question Hour.
He later tweeted, “For the first time in 70 years of the Rajya Sabha, today no Cabinet Minister answered questions during Question Hour. The Ministers of State were pathetic — reading out replies already circulated and chanting Modi Chalisa!”
Rule 38 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Council of States allocate 60 minutes for Question Hour when the House is in session. Each Ministry is allocated a particular day of the week when members can ask questions of it. Members have to give at least a 15-day notice before a question is asked.
On Wednesdays, questions from the Ministries of Home Affairs; Women and Child Development; Tribal Affairs; Social Justice and Empowerment; Skill Development and Entrepreneurship; Rural Development; Road Transport and Highways; Panchayati Raj; Education; and Cooperation, are listed to be answered.
As many as 172 questions were listed for Wednesday, February 9, of which 14 questions were starred questions. Starred questions are to be replied orally in the House by the Ministers concerned, and members can also ask supplementary questions. Though there is no stated rule that the answers are to be provided only by Cabinet Ministers, the convention is that starred questions are usually answered by senior Ministers.
On Wednesday, the starred questions for the Ministries of Home Affairs; Education; Road Transport and Highways; and Social Justice and Empowerment, were answered by the concerned Ministers of State — Nityanand Rai, Subhash Sarkar, V.K Singh and A. Narayanaswamy, respectively. Home Minister Amit Shah, and Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, were in Goa and Uttarakhand, respectively, to campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections.
