Scoffing at the criticism over government decision to bring an ordinance to implement the Food Security Bill, Union minister Manish Tewari today accused the Opposition of shedding "crocodile tears" over parliamentary propriety.
"...It is indeed amusing that the ones who are shedding crocodile tears on propriety are also the ones who have acquired a Phd in 'disruptionites'," the Information and Broadcasting Minister said referring to disruption of Parliament proceedings in the recent past.
In an apparent reference to the BJP, Tewari said that the opposition had shown scant respect for parliamentary traditions and added that two of its sessions had been washed out because of its stance.
"Substantive questions or substantive criticism with regard to the Food Security Ordinance has to be answered once the President has promulgated it. But I am quite amused as to who are the people who are talking about parliamentary propriety, who are getting worried about parliamentary sessions and the fact that a parliamentary session was on the cusp," Tewari told reporters here.
"Those who have acquired a Phd in 'disruptionites', the opposition, need to be circumspect as to the manner in which they have treated the Parliament," he said, adding, "Don't we all recall November session of 2010 which was wiped out. Don't we recall the monsoon session last year which was completely washed out...."
The government's decision to bring an ordinance to implement the Food Security Bill drew flak from major Opposition with BJP and Left accusing it of "bypassing" Parliament. They found support from Samajwadi Party which questioned the government's "hurry", saying it would turn "bread-givers (farmers) into beggars".
In a question related to the Jet-Etihad deal, Tewari said that the government took decisions after taking into consideration all points of view.
"When you liberalised the economic space, obviously people do come and represent their case. Now if you are going to term that as lobbying or if you are going to qualify that in a particular manner, I guess, it is just a matter of nomenclature.
"The fact is that people do come and represent their case. People do come and represent their point of view. And when government takes a decision, it takes all possible points of view into consideration and arrives at the best possible decision in national interest," the Minister said.
