Parliament to miss former Prime Minsters during this Budget session

No formerPrime Ministerwill be present in the forthcoming Budget session of the Parliament as Manmohan Singh's nearly 30-year-long tenure as aRajya Sabhamember ended on Friday and HDDeve Gowdalost from Tumkur seat in the recently concludedLok Sabhaelections.

Parliament's first Budget session after the constitution of the new government at Centre is scheduled to start on June 17. Deve Gowda, who served as the 11thPrime MinisterofIndiafrom June 1996 to April 1997, lost to BJP's GS Basavaraj from TumkurLok Sabhaconstituency by little over 13,000 votes.

Earlier,Deve Gowdaused to regularly contest from Hassan parliamentary constituency. However, he had vacated his seat to field his grandsonPrajwal Revannafrom there.

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Soon after theLok Sabharesults were announced on May 23, Revanna, who defeated BJP's A Manju from Hassan by a margin of 1.41 lakh votes, offered to resign from the seat to get his grandfather re-elected.

"To reinstate the confidence of JD(S) cadre, we have to fill the gap left by the defeat of HDDeve Gowda.Therefore, I have decided to tender my resignation. I want him to be victorious once again from Hassan," said Prajwal, who was the only JD(S) candidate to be able to win his seat inKarnataka.

After his loss, Deve Gowda said, "As a former Prime Minister,I have been defeated twice. This is not a big issue. My concern is how to save a regional party. I will see that JD(S) strengthens its base. I will take responsibility and proceed forward. I am not going to blame anybody for the loss. How it happened is not to be discussed in media."

BJPruled out JD(S)-Congressalliance inKarnatakaby winning 25 out of 28 seats. TheCongressand the JD(S) received one seat each, while one seat went to anindependent candidate.

Similar to its performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, theCongressparty didn't perform well in 2019general electiontoo and only managed to win on 52 seats.

Due to Congress' poor performance, Manmohan Singh, who was thePrime MinisterofIndiafrom 2004 to 2014, will be missed in the upcoming Budget session of the Parliament as his nearly 30-year-long tenure as aRajya Sabhamember ended on Friday.

Singh would not be present in theRajya Sabhafor the first time since his first election fromAssamin 1991 as he could not make up to the Parliament' upper House due to Congress' poor strength in the state Assembly.

The Congress party could not get him re-elected fromAssamas it has only 25 MLAs as against 43 first-preference votes needed. The party even cannot send Singh from other states where Rajya Sabha seats are vacant. With the election of BJP's KamakhyaPrasad Tasaand AGP's Birender Prasad Baishya's unopposed election from Assam, a total of nine seats are lying vacant in Odisha (4),Tamil Nadu(1),Bihar(2) andGujarat(2).

Congress does not have required numbers to secure any Rajya Sabha berths in these states exceptGujaratwhere it is eyeing to grab at least one seat. Although Singh can be sent to the House from Karnataka, Chhattisgarh,Rajasthanor Punjab, there are no immediate vacancies in these states.

During his tenure as Rajya Sabha MP, Singh led the upper House for 10 years from 2004 to 2014 and acted as theLeaderof the Opposition for six years. Singh was last elected to the House in 2013.