By Prabhjot Singh | Opinion |
Will Punjab get its voice back in Rajya Sabha? Seven representatives of the State in the upper House of Parliament are rookies with little or no experience of parliamentary affairs. Needless to reiterate, it is time for them to go through a trial by fire especially as they enter the House or rise to make a point on the floor of the House with high expectations.
After a controversial induction into the political stream, the new Punjab MPs, have quickly come to grips with the Parliamentary procedures, as issues concerning Punjab, its people, farmers, pollution, Sikh affairs, and others were raised and got considerable attention. Intriguingly, all seven Rajya Sabha members representing Punjab, had identical and unique obstacles in addition to the existing challenges facing them before they made their parliamentary debut.
They have cleared the first step well.
Their hurdles include a lack of social contact with senior MPs as they are a new and varied breed coming from different streams of life. None of them had any political career.
Growing pressure from their constituency, which in their case happens to be the trouble-torn Punjab, and allegations against some of them that they are “outsiders” and are “ignorant about issues facing the State,” they faced a heightened climate of hostility.
They face an onerous task of dispelling impressions that shroud their backgrounds. Of new MPs, some of them have already made a start which has been acknowledged by none other than the Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, who incidentally will be relinquishing his office on August 10. He while allowing one of new Punjab MPs, Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal, to make his first zero hour reference in the upper house, congratulated him on his performance.
“Tussi changa bolaya hai…aapka abhinandan,” said Naidu after Seechewal flagged the problem of incessant water logging in the Malwa districts of Muktsar and Fazilka, leading to damage of farm produce as well as severe diseases on account of water pollution.
Balbir spoke of how 22 drains converge in Fazilka as the waters cannot flow to Pakistan on account of a bandh across the border.
“Water cannot enter Pakistan due to a bandh on the Pakistan side. As water cannot flow to that side, the entire Fazilka area remains heavily inundated and the condition of the people is very bad. Due to incessant water logging this area is affected by severe diseases and pollution. You will be surprised to learn that disabled children are being born in village after village. We urge the Centre to intervene and talk to Pakistan so that water can flow to the Pakistan side to help clear these areas of water logging,” the AAP MP from Punjab said.
Seechewal also informed the Rajya Sabha that due to water logging in Fazilka and Muktsar districts, large swathes of farm lands have been damaged.
He suggested that both the state and Central governments should work together to clear the above two districts of water logging and prevent farmers from committing suicide.
Other than Balbir, one of the other new MPs, Vikramjit Singh Sawhney, had raised the issue of Panjab University. In a written question, he wanted to know the stand of the Union Government of converting Panjab University into a Central University. There was no move to alter the status of Panjab University, Chandigarh, from state to a Central university, the government said in Parliament while answering his question.
Another first time Rajya Sabha member from Punjab, Raghav Chadha, raised the issue of failure of the Union Government to start the ‘Gurdwara Circuit Train’ for Sikh pilgrims.
After the announcement in September 2021, no work has been done to make the scheme a reality by Union Government, Raghav Chadha said urging the BJP-led NDA government to inform Sikhs about time frame so they can plan their pilgrimages
Interestingly, the AAP MPs have virtually hijacked the Sikh or the Panthic agenda. Besides raising the issue of Gurdwara Circuit Train, Raghav Chadha also met the Union Finance Minister and submitted her a memorandum to draw her attention towards several issues of Punjab, chief among those being the imposition of 12 per cent GST on ‘serais’ (inns) in the area around the Golden Temple complex. He demanded immediate rollback of the GST on serais.
Chadha also sought a special financial package and additional water resources for the welfare of the farmers of Punjab and also to address the issue of depleting water crisis. This is a matter which needs urgent attention if Punjab and its farmers are to be saved, he added.
Former Test cricket player and now Rajya Sabha member from Punjab, Harbhajan Singh, also joined his fellow AAP MPs in raising the issues facing Punjab and the Sikhs. He talked about attack on Sikh Gurdwara in Afghanistan in his first Parliament debate and wanted to know what the Indian government was doing to assure Sikhs all over the world about their safety and security besides making their places of worship safe.
Going by the issues and the manner in which they were raised on the floor of the House, new MPs appear to have started well. Punjab needs a strong voice in both houses of Parliament to highlight long standing issues facing the State. After Rajya Sabha reverberated with some of these critical issues, a similar support or endorsement from those representing the State in the lower House – Lok Sabha – can help in finding solutions to the pending issues.
Prabhjot Singh is a veteran journalist with over three decades of experience covering a wide spectrum of subjects and stories. He has covered Punjab and Sikh affairs for more than three decades besides covering seven Olympics and several major sporting events and hosting TV shows. For more in-depth analysis please visit probingeye.com or follow him on Twitter.com/probingeye
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