Finance Minister Arun Jaitley apprehended a “washout” of the winter session, quoting former PM Jawaharlal Nehru's speech in the House to argue that the main opposition was not being mindful of the legacy of its own leaders.
Referring to Congress's disruption of Parliament after an adverse high court ruling in the National Herald case, the minister wrote in a post on a social networking site, “The last session of Parliament did not function. The current session of Parliament is also threatened with a washout. The reasons for the washout of the current session keep changing by the hour.” He quoted a speech on the importance of the parliamentary system delivered by Nehru on March 28, 1957, the last day of the first Lok Sabha which he said was “a must read for all of us” adding, “Those who claim the legacy of Panditji must ask themselves the question, what kind of history are they making.”
“Here, we have sat in this Parliament, the sovereign authority of India, responsible for the governance of India. Surely, there can be no higher responsibility or greater privilege than to be a member of this sovereign body which is responsible for the fate of the vast number of human beings who live in this country. All of us, if not always, at any rate from time to time, must have felt this high sense of responsibility and destiny to which we had been called. Whether we were worthy of it or not is another matter. We have functioned, therefore, during these five years not only on the edge of history but sometimes plunging into the processes of making history.”
Jaitley, who met Congress leader Anand Sharma over lunch to discuss GST, wrote that the country is waiting for Parliament to “discuss public issues, to legislate and approve a historic Constitution Amendment enabling the GST.”
“All this is being indefinitely delayed. The question we need to ask ourselves is, 'are we being fair to ourselves and this country?'” he wrote.
