Young MPs put up good show in Parliament

The four-day debate on the General Budget 2009-10 saw an overwhelming participation of debutant parliamentarians, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday.

Of the 94 members who spoke, 42 were first-time parliamentarians. Twenty of these 42 parliamentarians were below 50 years of age.

In his reply to the General Budget debate, Mukherjee appreciated the participation of his “young colleagues” and hoped it would mark a “new phase” for Parliament. “They may be first-timers, but their observations, criticism and analysis were mature. From the way in which my young colleagues spoke, it looks like the Indian Parliament is entering a new phase,” he said.

The debate saw debutant members from across party lines speaking about their aspirations and demands from the budget. Cricketer-turned-parliamentarian Mohammad Azharuddin, who got elected to the Lok Sabha on a Congress ticket from Moradabad, spoke on several issues including the one issue closest to his heart — sports. He felt the budget “had something for everyone”, but he urged the government to include brassware artisans under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, when referring to the high prevalence of TB among them. Moradabad is known for its brass industry.

He also demanded elections to sports bodies and regretted that 80% of the allocations to Sports Authority of India go towards staff payments. The debate also saw young parliamentarians from opposition parties take on Mukherjee on his budgetary allocations for the common man. Jayant Chaudhary, son of RLD leader Ajit Singh and MP from Mathura, said, “The words aam aadmi in the budget send out a wrong message. He should have allotted more to farmers.” Interestingly, a large number of debutant MPs who participated in the debate were from the Congress.