New Delhi,
Disrupting the Rajya Sabha may become difficult in future with Vice-President and House Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu set to receive the report of the expert committee set up to review rules for conduct of business in the Upper House.

Addressing a gathering after releasing Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi’s book “Straight Talk”, Naidu said the committee, he formed to review the Rajya Sabha rules to enable better functioning of the House, had started its work and would submit an interim report next month. He also took the occasion to argue that political parties should stop viewing each other as enemies and should be tolerant to diverse ideologies.

“Political parties are not enemies, they at best are rivals. By sitting with each other, you don’t get converted,” Naidu said lamenting lack of social courtesies in Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian parties DMK and AIADMK.

“The people of one party in Tamil Nadu do not attend weddings and funerals of the people of the other party. This is not good. We are not enemies,” he said with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Jyotiraditya Scindia and DMK’s M Kanimozhi gracing the dais.

The remarks came at a time of debate on whether former President Pranab Mukherjee should have accepted an RSS invitation to address the Sangh cadres in Nagpur.

The Vice-President also seconded radical suggestions Singhvi has made in the 63 articles he wrote over the years and has now collated as a book. “Singhvi argues that the party whip should not apply to legislation issues to enable bipartisan legislations to be enacted. He speaks of mandatory judicial impact assessment of laws and disqualification of MPs at the stage of framing of charges. The author argues for fast track courts to dispose of election pleas. I agree to these suggestions as also to another one related to the establishment of a Ministry of Excellence.”