Parl logjam to be eased with big legislative push

With no fruitful business getting transacted in the second week of the ongoing session of Parliament, beginning Monday the government has an onerous task to give a push to pending legislative agenda, which includes passage of important bills related to economic matters. The second week of the session was completely lost to the stalemate over the controversial statement made by Minister of State Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti. Prime Minister Narendra Modi realising the urgency to have normal functioning of Parliament back, reached out to the treasury benches in both the Houses asking the members to accept the minister’s apology. He also maintained a reconciliatory tone on Sunday during the meeting on plan panel.

According to sources in the Congress, the Opposition says it has already climbed down from its initial stand of demanding the minister’s resignation to bringing a censure motion in both the Houses. “The Opposition has already reciprocated, now it’s the turn of the government to show humility and accept the demand for censure,” said a Congress leader. On the other hand sources in the government claimed that the Opposition was continuously hiking its demand.

“First they demanded apology from Minister, thereafter statement by Prime Minister and now the censure motion. We cannot allow ourselves to be continuously blackmailed. They too have some responsibility to facilitate running of the House,” said a senior BJP functionary. BJP ranks also pointed out that censure motion cannot be against an individual but on an issue. There are speculations that a discussion on hate speeches by politicians might take place, which Trinamool Congress, with a chunk of 34 MPs in Lok Sabha, is not agreeing to.

“They see it as a design to dig out cases like those of Tapas Pal’s speech,” a Congress leader said. Lined up on the legislative agenda are important bill like the one seeking to replace coal blocks allocation ordinance. Government had promulgated Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 2014 in October to facilitate auctioning of the cancelled coal blocks. The ordinance has come under attack from trade unions across the ideologies. The bill seeking to replace Textile Undertakings (Nationalisation) Laws (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2014 is also on the agenda.

It came to shield the National Textile Corporation from rent control laws that have been used to evict its sick textile units from prime land in several cities. Anti-hijacking Bill and Supplementary Demands for Grants and related appropriation bills are also on priority agenda so also Payments and Settlements Systems (Amendment) Bill, 2014 and Appropriation Acts (Repeal) Bill, 2014.