Covid-19: Parliamentary panels’ meets, central hall events cancelled

The parliamentary standing committee meetings and scheduled floral tributes in Parliament’s Central Hall are being cancelled in view of the surge in Covid-19 cases.

Parliamentary standing committees on personnel, public grievances, law and justice and transport, tourism and culture have cancelled their meetings. The move comes after members of Parliament cutting across party lines gave representations to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu to cancel such meetings. According to sources, both the presiding officers decided against taking a uniform decision to suspend committee meetings and instead left it to the committee chairpersons to take a call. A senior Lok Sabha secretariat official, who did not wish to be identified, told ET: “While we had a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on petroleum, the meeting of personnel, public grievances, law and justice was cancelled last week.”

Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha, who is a member of the committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice, said: “Members have expressed reservations on attending the meetings in view of increasing cases. So just a day or two before the meeting, we were told it had been cancelled. We support the decision.” Parliamentary standing committee meeting on transport, tourism and culture, which was slated for Monday, has also been cancelled.


Floral tributes planned in Parliament could not take place. Floral tribute on the occasion of BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary on April 14 was also cancelled.

Sources said the presiding officers decided against taking a common call as it had become a prickly issue with the opposition last year. The opposition had demanded that meetings be held virtually instead of physically in view of the Covid-19 cases. The issue was examined in detail but the government maintained that there was no such provision in the Rules of Procedure.