Politics in Delhi has of late begun to resemble the weather in the capital. Into the second week of December, yet there is only a nip in the air. In politics too, the frostiness is missing. Nowhere is this more visible than in Parliament which halfway through the winter session is yet to witness what newspaper headline writers call "pandemonium". There have been no dramatic disruption of proceedings, no repeated adjournments, no sharp exchanges between members on the treasury and opposition benches. And, surprisingly, the well of either House-into which members troop when the bell signals the end of question hour every working day in Parliament-remains untransgressed.

For the record, in the first 13 working days of the ongoing winter session, the Lok Sabha passed 19 bills and the Rajya Sabha 14. Even the decade-long ritual of a December 6 protest-against the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992-was minimal in both Houses. A token protest was recorded by opposition members in the Rajya Sabha on December 5, since the anniversary fell on a holiday; in the Lok Sabha the members made a feeble attempt to disrupt the question hour. They needed little persuasion from the chair to get back to their seats. The Opposition has virtually mocked at political pundits who had predicted Parliament would be the battleground for the Gujarat polls. Venomous speeches were reserved for public rallies in Ahmedabad and Vadodara. In Parliament, the support that the nda Government received from across the aisle made the dividing line between the treasury and the Opposition almost invisible. It even made up for all the time lost during the two raucous previous sessions. Four key financial laws-the Securitisation & Reconstruction of Financial Assets Bill, the Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill, the uti (Transfer of Undertaking and Repeal) Bill and the sebi Bill-were passed.

MANHOAR JOSHI Speaker, Lok Sabha	B.S. SHEKHAWAT Chairman, Rajya Sabha
"Ministers should take questions seriously. Everyone must come prepared."	"Question Hour is sacrosanct. Lots of effort goes into preparing answers."
Q. The previous session, your first as Speaker, ended abruptly. A. The House can run smoothly if leaders agree. You also have to be lucky. The petrol pump issue had erupted suddenly during the last session. Q. It has been smooth so far during the winter session. How come? A. Before the session, I met Sonia Gandhi and other leaders. I assured them I would allow any discussion. Media disapproval of frequent adjournments must have influenced the floor strategy of all political parties. Q. You are keeping ministers on their toes. A. Ministers should take questions seriously. So should the officers. The Union Cabinet is responsible to the Lok Sabha. Everyone must come fully prepared.	Q. You are placing a lot of emphasis on question hour. A. I wanted to improve attendance during question hour. A lot of effort and resources go into preparing answers. That should not go waste. Q. You have introduced a lot of changes in the functioning of the House. A. I have restricted the number of supplementary questions so that more questions can be taken up during question hour. Absenteeism was high during question hour because not more than two questions were taken up. Q. You have been cracking the whip on ministers. A. I found that ministers were not answering questions directly. Like opposition MPs, many of them waste time prefacing their replies with political statements.

It's not that the honourable MPs have suddenly been through a crash course in parliamentary behaviour and etiquette. Both the Government and the Opposition credit the smooth ride in Parliament to a large extent to the two new presiding officers-Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi. As Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan says, "Both of them are former chief ministers and have spent nearly four decades in state legislatures, politics and the government. In conducting the business of the two Houses, they have brought with them their vast, vast experience." Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Shivraj Patil, himself a former Speaker of the Lower House, agrees. About Joshi, a rival in Maharashtra politics, he says, "By nature he is very composed. He is a very seasoned politician. He has been both leader of the Maharashtra Assembly as well as leader of its Opposition. He tries to be impartial." Echoes Margaret Alva, "He takes quick, on-the-spot decisions."

In the Upper House, Congress members are liberal in their praise of the chairman for his non-partisan approach. "He gives us all the time to speak and even puts ministers on the mat on our behalf," says MP Mabel Rebello. Her party colleague Karnendu Bhattacharjee, who was recently pulled up for absenting himself from the House, says, "I could not attend the House because of a family emergency. However, I still feel the chairman was not unjustified in upbraiding me." To avoid questions lapsing due to absence of members, Shekhawat has now instructed MPs to give him prior notice about their absence or alternatively to authorise some other member to put the question.

MPs long used to treating the House as their house would normally have treated such directives with disdain, but Shekhawat is actually winning friends from across the political spectrum. Says the vice-president: "I primarily wanted to improve attendance during question hour. A lot of effort and resources go into preparing answers. I did not want that to go waste. It is in people's interest that the ministers give oral replies to more questions," he says. To achieve this he has restricted the number of supplementary questions to two.

In step: Lack of threat to the NDA made Mahajan concede Opposition demands

Getting down to work In 13 working days, Parliament passed 14 bills. Prominent ones among them are: Securitisation BILL: Enables banks and financial institutions to recover bad debts by selling the assets of defaulters. UTI Bifurcation Bill: Splits Unit Trust of India into two separate companies. SEBI BILL: aimed at enhancing powers of stock market regulator. Negotiable Instruments: The bill doubles punishment for bouncing of cheques. Money-Laundering Bill: Pending for three years, adds teeth to laws against financial crimes.

Ordinarily, 20 questions are listed for oral answers during question hour which set off business in both Houses each working day. "Absenteeism was high during question hour because not more than one or two questions could be taken up. Too many supplementary questions took up the entire hour. So members, ministers and officials took the remaining 18 questions lightly," he says. None of the members is complaining about the curbs on the number of supplementary questions. "It is for our larger good. If more questions are being taken, why should we complain?" asks cpi(m) member Nilotpal Basu.

Shekhawat's enthusiasm for question time is palpable in his personal office at Parliament House. The wager among his staff every day is about the House one day setting a record by securing replies for oral questions. Of course, the eagerness to improve question tally is not Shekhawat's alone. His enthusiasm is shared by his Lok Sabha counterpart. On December 4, while wrapping up the question hour, an overwhelmed Joshi thanked the members for enabling him to take up as many as 15 questions listed for the day. And this he manages to do without putting curbs on any member who seeks any kind of supplementary information on listed questions. "I cannot set any limit for supplementary questions since the Lok Sabha is a large House. I would be happy if we can take up as many as six to eight questions every day," he says. He snatches time for questions by discouraging members from prefacing their question with long-winded speeches. Members are particularly happy with the manner in which he pays attention to competition among rival regional parties. Recalls dmk member Adhi Shankar: "During question hour, our Thanjavur MP, S.S. Palanimanickam, made a point about the Cauvery water issue. He extended the question hour by a minute just to enable another MP to have his say too."

It is not as if the two presiding officers share an interest in improving question hour alone. Even ministers are told they have to be more accountable to the elected representatives. Every morning, Joshi goes through written submissions made by ministers to see if they have answered the questions adequately. At least two ministers have been upbraided for attending the House without adequate preparations.

Shekhawat has gone a step ahead in keeping a vigilant eye on ministers. He once put an evasive Civil Supplies Minister Sharad Yadav on the mat on the issue of starvation deaths by asking him why the Government was not doing anything when its own godowns were overflowing with foodgrains. His intervention forced Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to offer to convene an all-party meeting on the issue.

Leaders of major political parties say a number of factors beside the two amiable presiding officers have contributed to the smooth running of the winter session. "Media flak as well as a marked shift in government tactics are responsible for the smooth running of Parliament," says cpi(m) leader Somnath Chatterjee. Congress Chief Whip in the Lok Sabha Priya Ranjan Das Munshi says important bills had to be passed since ordinances had been issued twice on securitisation and uti bifurcation. But his colleagues admit that the Congress did not make too much fuss about the divisive politics of the ruling bjp as it feared it would become a double-edged weapon in Gujarat.

It was not just the Congress that was worried about Gujarat. The Government too had an eye on the election-bound state. "In the first two days of the winter session, the Government surprised the Opposition by agreeing to two Opposition-sponsored motions. That is why we too helped in the passage of the bills," says rjd's Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. Mahajan admits the decision to give in to the Opposition demand for adjournment motions was taken since the Government did not see any threat to the nda coalition.

The Government's readiness to accede to virtually every demand has robbed the Opposition of enthusiasm to mount any offensive. Besides, with the election fever in high pitch in Gujarat, senior leaders from both sides were reserving their lung power for the campaign. If the Gujarat polls helped the MPs shift the battleground from Parliament, will its conclusion see Parliament getting back to its old ways? The five days that Parliament sits after the elections in Gujarat are over on December 12 should provide the answer to that question.