The Rajya Sabha cleared eight bills in four hours on Wednesday, taking to 15 its combined two-day tally and raising the question whether the Opposition’s House boycott over Sunday’s steamrollering of the farm bills had proved counter-productive, handing the government a free pass.

The 15 bills passed or returned over the two days account for 60 per cent of the 25 bills the Upper House has cleared during this truncated, 10-day monsoon session.

This was noted with displeasure by Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu in his valedictory address on Wednesday afternoon before the session was adjourned sine die because of several Covid-19 cases emerging in Parliament House since the session began on September 14.

“Though it is not the first time that some members are suspended and bills are passed when some sections of the House boycott the proceedings, I find it extremely unpalatable. This kind of a situation needs to be avoided by all means,” Naidu said.

He said the House rules provided for suspension of members when it became inevitable, adding: “If legislative work is not taken up during the boycott by some sections of the House, it may legitimise such boycott as an effective instrument of blocking legislation.”

In so saying, he seemed to be responding to a letter sent to him by Opposition leaders in the morning urging him not to allow the three labour-related bills to be passed in their absence on Wednesday.

“These bills affect the livelihood of crores of workers across the country. It will be a great blot on our democracy to have these bills passed unilaterally today,” the letter said.

Naidu conceded the Opposition members’ right to protest but said: “The question is, how should it be done? The floor of this august House is the most effective platform for contestation of ideas. But if boycott is done for a longer period, it amounts to leaving the very platform that enables you to effectively convey your ideas and contesting those of others.”

Opposition leaders said they were conscious of this but argued that the government had left them with no option after the way in which the two farm bills were “rammed th-rough” on Sunday despite several parties demanding their referral to a select committee.

“Boycott was the only option,” Congress chief whip Jairam Ramesh told The Telegraph when asked whether, in hindsight, the Opposition should have participated in the discussions on the labour bills so their viewpoint and resistance became part of parliamentary record.

Several Opposition members said they were not entirely comfortable with the boycott strategy but went along with the majority view.“I wanted to speak on the labour code bill and FCRA amendment. There were members who will be retiring before the next session, so today was their last day. Still, they relinquished their privilege of making their farewell speeches because farmers would not have forgiven us if we had returned to the House without stopping the farm bills,” said the RJD’s Manoj Jha.

“Even if we appear losers today, history shall record that we were in sync with the people on the streets.”

Jha asked rhetorically what the Opposition had got from speaking eloquently on Sunday on the farm bills.

Two Left members — Binoy Vishwam of the CPI and Elamaram Kareem of the CPM — accused the Modi government of being bent on pushing through anti-farmer and anti-labour bills this session to please the corporate houses.

“Now that they have a majority in both Houses, they would not have listened to us; they would have pushed the labour bills through just the way they did with the farm bills,” Kareem said.

“We had requested the Chairman in the morning not to allow the government to take up these bills.”

Vishwam said the Opposition had been forced to boycott the House by the government’s refusal to listen to anyone and insistence on breaking all the rules to have its way.

“On Sunday we witnessed how M&S (Modi-Shah) murdered parliamentary democracy. They then bulldozed their way through 15 bills in eight hours. They are no more just murderers of democracy, they are serial killers,” said Derek O’Brien, Trinamul’s leader in the Rajya Sabha.

After writing to the Chairman, Opposition members from the two Houses had demonstrated before the Gandhi statue on the front lawns of Parliament House. They had then marched to Ambedkar’s statue at the complex because, as Shashi Tharoor put it, “Ambedkarji’s Constitution is being trampled upon”.

He said the boycott was the Opposition’s way of showing that it would not cooperate with this “travesty of democracy”.In the evening, leaders of several Opposition parties met President Ram Nath Kovind to urge him to return the farm bills, saying the rules of procedure had not been followed during their passage.