July 15, 2014
Derek O’Brien speaks on TRAI (Amendment) Bill | Transcript
Sir, when you have a simple, clear, transparent point to make you don’t need 6 minutes. I think we have been granted 6 minutes, we will make it in three or four minutes. The simple point here, Sir, is that on behalf of my party, the Trinamool Congress, we want to call a spade a spade, because we believe, in true Trinamool style, it always helps to be transparent and straight talking.
There are two sides to this argument Sir. The first we heard from the government that there are other statutory bodies which have certain other requirements; so they wanted to provide some logic to match TRAI and the Chairman of TRAI. This is one way of looking at it, and that is why they have brought an Ordinance and a Bill. The first good thing they did… they did not bypass the Parliament
The first point that this side is making is, yes, there are other statutory bodies and we want to bring them up to level playing field. The second point, on the other side which is being made – I am sharing this with you because this is the way we debated it within the party – the second point being made is that this has only been done for one person and this would never happen if this wasn’t for that one person.
Sir to be frank…let us not be coy, let us not be bashful, this was done for one person. If it was done for one person, who was this person? This person is no less a person than the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. Now here, unlike some people who generally feel that Trinamool Congress will play a role of a destructive Opposition – you show us the flag and we will say no no – no Sir, we are a constructive Opposition. We are going to give you at the end of it all three good reasons why we are behind this.
Because at the end of it, it is not about statutory bodies; that is all hogwash. It is not about one person bending a rule, it is about having one person, a key person you need to have there, the Prime Minister needs this person and why does he need this person? Our simple understanding is he needs him for three reasons… and the three reasons will only take me ten seconds…
First reason is good governance. The second reason is good governance and third reason is good governance. I will leave it at that Sir. Thank you
