Parliament ruckus a sad experience, says Meira Kumar

NEW DELHI - Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar Monday said it was a sad experience for her to witness parliament being disrupted for such a long time during the just-concluded winter session.

“Deeply anguished” Meira Kumar chose not to make her customay valedictory speech on the floor of the house on the last day of the session.

Instead, she just played the national song Vande Mataram - a norm - before announcing the house adjourned sine die.

Later in a statement, the speaker said: “I feel deeply anguished that the house has been disrupted for such a long time in this session.”

“Personally it has been a sad experience for me and I hope that parliament functions smoothly in future,” Meira Kumar said.

India, she said, is a “mature parliamentary democracy”.

“Parliament is a forum to debate and sort out the differences. Our parliament has many mechanisms to arrive at a consensus. It is our responsibility to ensure that people’s faith in democratic system is kept intact. The time that we lost could have been used more meaningfully to the benefit of the people whom our members represent.”

The two houses were adjourned Monday sine die, ending an over month-long winter session that was the least productive ever with only seven of 138 hours of business being conducted due to a stalemate between the government and opposition over the 2G spectrum scandal.