PM urges opposition to help pass Bills

The Prime Minister, speaking in the Lok Sabha on Thursday afternoon, sought all MPs' indulgence to help pass the various bills. `Bills that are to be passed are for the people. They are for freeing the system from middlemen. I am saying all this because people must know that bills have been passed here but have been stopped thereafter. I request MPs across parties to help pass bills.' Modi said: `Hindering debate in the House is very counter-productive. Debate will be more fruitful if procedure is followed. These are not my words, this was said by former PM Rajiv Gandhi. `Parliament is a forum where government is questioned and the government has to clarify its stand. No one is spared during the debate. `We should follow the advice of the President on the functioning of Parliament. The Speaker has taken new initiatives (with regards to Parliament’s functioning). This will help bring qualitative change.' He stated that poverty was so deep-rooted in the country that `if Modi tried to tackle the problem, Modi will get uprooted.' In reply to a motion of thanks to the President for his address, a day after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s stinging attack on the government, he said `the opposition is concerned about why we are doing better work than them.' The Prime Minister charged: `You have sown the seeds of poverty.' The NREGA or MGNREGA has been put to use in less needy states. `Khargeji (Leader of the Congress Opposition in the House) said there is corruption in the MNREGA and I agree with him. Look at the CAG report of 2012 & what observations were made,' he said giving it back to the Congress. The Prime Minister went on: "No one will deny that if the Congress would’ve helped the poor in 60 years, the poor wouldn’t still be facing trouble." He admitted: `We must admit that the MGNREGA is not a symbol of our success.'