Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal called the Opposition’s charges about Wednesday’s Parliament proceedings ‘a bunch of lies’, and said the latter had behaved like violent hooligans in India’s ‘temple of democracy’ in a bid to block the Insurance amendment Bill’s passage.
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Blaming the ‘arrogance’ of some Opposition leaders who had showed ‘their mindset in Parliament over the past few days’, Mr. Goyal said their obstructive approach to legislative business was just driven by the need to ‘try and prove a point and make the session a washout’. The Minister was addressing the national conclave of the Confederation of Indian Industry on Thursday afternoon.
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“If Parliament is not allowed to function, if our temple of democracy is converted into a platform for hooliganism and violence, I think it is a big blot and a shame for people who have used our temple of democracy to play out very petty politics and a mindset which is anti-progress, anti-development and anti-people,” said the Minister in charge of Commerce and Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.
Stating that the government was pushing through laws for ‘the good of the nation and people at large’, Mr Goyal said the changes introduced in the session will help juveniles, small enterprises and bank depositors in troubled banks like PMC Bank. “The biggest issue that they (Opposition) were literally fighting for, was to block a bill which would have given our insurance companies power to serve the people better,” he emphasised.
“We saw such unsavoury instances being played out in Parliament. And to top it off, the bunch of lies that were played out today on television. Really, one feels ashamed how a very poor leadership over the past many decades, largely revolving around a few people and their families, has actually killed Indian enterprise and Indian animal spirits,” Mr. Goyal asserted, adding he does not know how the mindset of such this ‘negative thinking’ politicians can be changed.
