Government having a heavy agenda in Winter session of Parliament

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PM Modi had deliberately pulled himself out of the media glare for some time to concentrate on his red Fort rampart Speech where he may announce his future road map for the country

PM Modi had deliberately pulled himself out of the media glare for some time to concentrate on  his  red Fort rampart Speech  where he may announce his future road map for the country

 

Sri krishna ENARADA, New Delhi, November 8, 2014

When the Winter session of Parliament gets underway from November 24 for 22 days till December 23, the government would be having a heavy legislative agenda before it but would be interesting to see the opposition role with non-BJP and non-Congress parties called Janata Parivar trying to forge a front but having only 15 members in the Lok Sabha and 25 in the Rajya Sabha.

The winter session would be the second major parliamentary session that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be facing, but what appears rather odd is that even without a majority, the opposition which should have been attempting to consolidate itself seems to be going on the offensive.

On November six, the Janata Parivar as the combined six parties is known met over lunch at an initiative taken by former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to form a Non-Congress and Non-BJP front and also excluded the left parties.

Even as the Janata Parivar sought to mobilize support for itself, the government having a heavy agenda on its hands with a total of 67 Bills pending Parliamentary approval with 59 in the Rajya Sabha and eight in the Lok Sabha is planning to get support of smaller groups in the Rajya Sabha to get its bills passed.

One of the major problems faced by the government would be in the Rajya Sabha where it is short in numbers with BJP having 46 members compared to 68 of the Congress and with its allies the Congress would have 102.

On the other hand, the BJP with new allies including its one time arch rival like the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by former minister and strongman from Maharasthra Sharad Pawar too supporting the Modi government, its numbers would touch 64 and considering the massive majority enjoyed by the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha, the Modi government is banking on regional parties like AIADMK, BJD and others lending issue based support to the government.

Besides, the BJP is not averse to convening a joint session of Parliament though such a session cannot be called for Constitution Amendment Bills but for others it would be able to muster the numbers needed.

In a joint session, the half way mark is 396, and with the total number of members of both Houses coming to 795 – 545 from the Lok Sabha, including two nominated members, and 250 Rajya Sabha members in its full strength, including 12 nominated ones and the BJP-led NDA having 340 seats in the Lok Sabha, it would need just 60 more and that should not be difficult in the existing scenario.

In fact, Naidu had hinted that the government could convene joint sitting as a last resort.

The month-long session will have a total of 22 sittings in which four days have been earmarked for Private Members’ business and Parliament may not see as much fireworks as had been happening during the five years from 2009-14 in the second term of the Congress-led UPA.

The session would see new ministerial faces and with several portfolios being redistributed such as Defence which had been with BJP leader Arun Jaitley alongwith another heavy ministry – Finance, the government would be in a better position to deal with issues.

Clearly with the opposition yet to pick up the pieces from the severe electoral debacle, the government is confident that it would be able to push through about 30 to 35 bills in the winter session.

The long wait for finalisation of seating arrangement in Lok Sabha is expected to be over before the session commences, almost six months after the constitution of the new House.

One of the issues that the Congress is likely to raise is regarding the Leader of Opposition though unfortunately for that party it is not only short of number having just 44 MPs but also short of support being virtually isolated.

“We expect the arrangement to be in place before the winter session,” said an official at Parliament over the exercise which has dragged on after the declaration of the results of the 16th Lok Sabha polls on May 16.

The government’s focus in the session would be to get legislation passed which would help to carry forward the large number of reforms it has in mind.

Among the various measures taken by the government included a single-window labour compliance process for industries and a new system to end the so-called Inspector Raj, and deregulated diesel prices.

But, what was the most significant was the promulgation on October 20 of the Ordinance to facilitate allotment of coal mines to state-owned companies and retained the option of allowing private miners to compete with the state-owned Coal India Ltd, ending the latter’s monopoly.

This was done to deal with the crisis created by the Supreme Court’s cancellation of coal mining licences awarded between 1993 and 2010.

But, the government is likely to face problems on getting this ordinance passed in the Rajya Sabha where parties like the Trinamool Congress of West Bengal and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Odisha where a large number of coal mines are located may oppose it.

The privatization would be opposed as the view is that the state governments would lose valuable revenue from the mines.

Another legislation pertaining to labour reforms too may hit a road block since employee unions have accused the government of ignoring the interests of workers in seeking to enhance the ease of doing business in the country.

“The general tendency of this government is to enrich those who are anti-poor. The inspection scheme too will not favour the labourers. Their policies are pro-employer and anti-labour. They are not doing it pronouncedly, but it is happening,” said Saugata Roy, senior TMC leader and Lok Sabha member.

“The government’s move to bring in an ordinance on the coal issue is definitely something that will be opposed by the Congress party in the Parliament. Parliament is going to meet in three weeks and we see no need to bring the ordinance without having a debate, without consulting the opposition parties,” Anand Sharma, senior Congress leader and spokesperson, said.

The Left parties and the trade unions, on the other hand, have criticized the government’s move to ease compliance of labour laws. “In this country, the labour laws aren’t implemented properly and it is a fact that most of the policies remain on paper. In self-certification, who will ever say that there is something wrong with their organization or industry? We will take this issue up in every available opportunity, including in the Parliament,” said A.K. Padmanabhan, politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Padmanabhan, who is also the president of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), said that all trade unions are united on the labour issue and it will be taken up with the public.

Several key pieces of legislation are still awaiting the Rajya Sabha approval. One is the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, which had to be sent to a Select Committee due to a demand by opposition parties. The Factories (Amendment) Bill and Apprentices (Amendment) Bill, 2014—two key labour reform bills—are also awaiting Parliament’s nod. While Apprentices (Amendment) Bill, 2014 has been passed by the Lok Sabha and is awaiting the Rajya Sabha’s approval, the Factories (Amendment) Bill still needs to be passed by both houses. The government will also need to garner support from opposition parties for passage of the constitution amendment Bill necessary for implementation of the goods and services tax.

Clearly showing the government’s concern over the need for support in both Houses of Parliament, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs M. Venkaiah Naidu has been given the task by the Prime Minister of evolving a consensus on major bills and issues and as part of this exercise, he has begun meeting the leaders of various political parties to discuss the major bills slated to be taken up in Parliament.

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