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New Parliament Buidling: Former speaker Sumitra Mahajan told in a special conversation with Amar Ujala that it had become very important to build a new parliament. Old Parliament is a heritage building, but it is 100 years old. There were many shortcomings in it, which have been removed in the new Parliament.
Sumitra Mahajan
– Photo: Amar Ujala
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There is an uproar over the new Parliament building. The opposition has announced to boycott the inauguration program to besiege the government on May 28. Meanwhile, former Speaker of the Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan says that the proposal for a new Parliament House was taken forward during my tenure. Consensus was made in the meeting. The land was also fixed. The opposition should rise above politics and welcome the new Parliament complex.
All parties including the Congress are raising questions on the need for a new Parliament building. On this, former Indore MP Sumitra Mahajan said that a new parliament building was necessary. The old Parliament House was a 100 years old building. After the delimitation, the members of the Lok Sabha have increased, but the number of seats in the Parliament House has not increased. Whenever there was 100 per cent attendance in the House, the members had to sit motionless. The members sitting in the middle could not even leave.
100 year old heritage building is old parliament
former speaker said The old Parliament House is 100 years old. Its texture is good. Heritage building. The demand for a new building was arising for a long time. The old building had many problems. One MP had even started calling himself a pillar-afflicted MP. The reason was that their seating arrangement was such that the pole used to come in the way. Whenever he had to speak, I would give permission and he would come to the front bench and speak. There is a rule in the Parliament that the MP can speak only while standing on his seat. Due to the pillars, some MPs were not visible from Asandi. In such a situation, she used to allow him, then he could come forward and speak.
There was a problem even in the gas pipeline
Sumitra Mahajan also made many changes during her tenure as Lok Sabha speaker. He said that earlier the gas tanks in the kitchen in the old building were kept on the roof. Former speaker Meira Kumar also saw it. There was a possibility of an accident. Because of this it was decided that the food would be prepared from outside. Then the MPs complained that the breads made from outside get cold. Then there was a proposal to lay gas pipeline as a solution to the problem. It was forbidden to vandalize the heritage building. Because of this, there were many problems for permission.
Water used to fill in the basement, there were problems in making it paperless
There were other problems in the old Parliament House. Water used to fill in the basement. Had to take the help of pump to get it out. Sumitra Mahajan says that she tried to make the Parliament House paperless. The problem was that there was no space in front of the MPs to even keep a laptop or tablet. Due to this the efforts to go paperless also remained incomplete. Political parties had to give rooms. There were no rooms, how could they give? Care has been taken in the new building that such problems do not arise.