Prime Minister Narendra Modi today forfeited Rs 79,750 of his salary and allowances for 23 days of Parliament's Budget session as the House did not function due to disruptions.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday forfeited Rs 79,750 of his salary and allowances for 23 days of Parliament's Budget session as the House did not function due to disruptions.
The move came two days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced that NDA MPs would give up the salary and allowances for 23 days as Parliament did not function and almost no business was transacted during the period.
As salary for March has already been credited in MPs' bank accounts, they have now been asked to write to secretariat offices so the money can be taken back from their accounts or adjusted in the next salary.
The Prime Minister and other ministers are only required to issue a direction to their own offices for the salary to be forfeited.
Both Houses of Parliament were today adjourned sine die, with unabated protests virtually washing out most of the second phase of the Budget session. The second part of the session began on March 5.
Merely five of 19 starred questions were replied to orally by Ministers in the Rajya Sabha, while 17 of the 580 such questions were answered in the Lok Sabha during the 29 sittings. A total of nearly 250 working hours was wasted during Parliament's Budget session.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar on Wednesday said that the MPs had taken the decision as they are paid to serve the citizens of the nation and if they are not able to do so then they have no right to take their money.
Kumar blamed Congress for disruptions in both the houses of the parliament and that the productivity of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha have dipped due to their 'undemocratic politics'.
"It's because of Congress's undemocratic politics that Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have not been functional. We're ready to talk about all the issues but they are not letting the houses function," Kumar said.
NDA ally Shiv Sena, however, blamed the government for the logjam in Parliament and said on Thursday that it was "not on the same page" with the BJP on the issue.
Arvind Sawant, a Shiv Sena MP from Southwest Mumbai, said his party was not consulted before the decision to forgo salary and allowances was taken.
BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy also refused to follow the directive of the party leadership and said that it wasn’t his fault that the House didn’t run.
(With PTI inputs)
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