15th Lok Sabha session: The shame finally ends

New Delhi: After pepper spray, scuffles and table smashing, Lok Sabha ended its final session before general elections in acrimony on Friday, setting the stage for a bitter poll campaign.

Friday marked the end of the 15th Lok Sabha session. This has been the most disruptive session

The Lok Sabha did at least manage to pass some legislation in its final weeks, but its most notable achievement - approval for the creation of the state of Telangana - took place out of the public eye after the live television feed was cut as tempers erupted on the floor of the house.

The 15th Lok Sabha session will go down in the history as the most disrupted in independent India so far. However, in a speech before parliament on Friday, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde tried to put a gloss on its work, pointing out that a landmark food security bill had been passed last year and proclaiming that ‘many historic incidents happened in this session'.

Wasted Hours

Number of Hours Lok Sabha has worked over the years

But a more brutal assessment came from his cabinet colleague Shashi Tharoor who said the behaviour of parliamentarians had plumbed to an all-time low. "The ‘temple of democracy', as Indians have long hailed their parliament, has been soiled by its own priests, and is now in desperate need of reform," he wrote for the Project Syndicate website.

Hartosh Singh Bal, a veteran political commentator, said, "These have been (the) worst five years of India's parliamentary political history... If Jawaharlal Nehru had come back today, he'd have been shocked and saddened." Politicians from all sides said the public deserved better, with BJP spokeswoman Nirmala Sitharaman saying that it ‘doesn't augur well' for faith in parliamentary democracy.