PV conceived idea of new building for Parliament: Azad

New Delhi: The former leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Gulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday gave a new insight regarding the construction of a new Parliament building. He said the idea to construct a new Parliament building emerged during the tenure of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in 1991-92 when Shivraj Patil was the Lok Sabha speaker and he was the parliamentary affairs minister.

Azad said at that time, "we developed the building plan and had extensive discussions, and we then debated with PV on the necessity of constructing a new and larger parliament building."

"However, due to various reasons, the proposal was sent to cold storage.” He said now, a new parliament building has been constructed, and that is a good thing. Azad said the rationale behind the construction of a larger Parliament building is to accommodate more MPs in case the number of parliamentary seats increase in the future. In 2026, he said the seats will need to be augmented to account for the population growth which had gone up by five times. When asked, he refused to comment on the decision of opposition parties to boycott the inaugural function.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the inauguration of the new Parliament on Sunday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi should not be linked with politics, reacting to Opposition parties announcing a boycott of the event.

“Don’t link this to politics. This is a very sentimental proceeding that is linking new India with our traditions. This should be seen in a limited way.

Politics has its own place and everyone reacts based on their own capacity to think,” Shah said.