Rajya Sabha to be prorogued for re-issue of land ordinance
28 March 2015 5:37 AM IST
The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh met here on Friday and decided to recommend prorogation of the Upper House with immediate effect.
Under the Constitution at least one of the Houses has to be prorogued for Government to issue an ordinance.
Parliament is currently on a month-long recess after the Budget session started on February 23.
The land acquisition ordinance, which was promulgated in December last, will lapse on April 5 because it could not be converted into a law by Parliament.
The Ordinance had cleared the Lok Sabha hurdled but faced stiff opposition in Rajya Sabha, where the government lacks numbers. The bill to replace the Ordinance was passed in Lok Sabha with nine amendments and the government indicated its willingness to further amend it but a united Opposition did not allow the government to take up the matter in Rajya Sabha.
“The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs today met and has decided to recommend prorogation of the Rajya Sabha with immediate effect,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters after the CCPA meet.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi besides Naidu were there.
Asked when will the government bring the ordinance on land again as the existing ordinance will lapse on April 5, the minister said, “you will come to know when the decision is taken.”
The government’s decision has come on a day when Congress President Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari rejecting his defence of the land ordinance and accused the government of “bending backwards” to favour industrialists at the cost of farmers in this matter.
There are indications that the new ordinance may carry the nine official amendments moved by the government during passage of the Bill in Lok Sabha, which seeks to replace the executive order. A meeting of the Union Cabinet on Wednesday had given “post facto approval” to those amendments.
There is buzz in government circles that the ruling dispensation may accept some tweaking of the consent clause, which was done away with in the original ordinance. It may agree to reintroduce the provision of taking farmers’ consent for acquiring land. The earlier 80% consent requirement can be reduced to 51%.
Nitish running govt with ‘useless people’
Asserting that there could be no comparison between PM Narendra Modi and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Friday said the latter was “just running a government with useless people who cheat the public”. “There can be no comparison between Modi and Kumar. Modi is running the country, not the government, while Kumar is just running a government with useless people who have cheated the public,” he said. He also slammed Kumar for joining hands with Lalu Yadav who has been convicted in the fodder scam.
Sonia flays govt on land bill
Rejecting the dialogue offer on the controversial Land Bill, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Friday alleged it was a mockery of the consensus building exercise by a “myopic” Narendra Modi government which was “bending backwards”to favour industrialists and demanded that the UPA’s legislation be brought back in totality. “The proposition of a post-facto debate after unilateral imposition of the anti-farmer law is mockery of building partisan consesus,” Gandhi said in a reply to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.
Under the Constitution at least one of the Houses has to be prorogued for Government to issue an ordinance.
Parliament is currently on a month-long recess after the Budget session started on February 23.
The land acquisition ordinance, which was promulgated in December last, will lapse on April 5 because it could not be converted into a law by Parliament.
The Ordinance had cleared the Lok Sabha hurdled but faced stiff opposition in Rajya Sabha, where the government lacks numbers. The bill to replace the Ordinance was passed in Lok Sabha with nine amendments and the government indicated its willingness to further amend it but a united Opposition did not allow the government to take up the matter in Rajya Sabha.
“The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs today met and has decided to recommend prorogation of the Rajya Sabha with immediate effect,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters after the CCPA meet.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi besides Naidu were there.
Asked when will the government bring the ordinance on land again as the existing ordinance will lapse on April 5, the minister said, “you will come to know when the decision is taken.”
The government’s decision has come on a day when Congress President Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari rejecting his defence of the land ordinance and accused the government of “bending backwards” to favour industrialists at the cost of farmers in this matter.
There are indications that the new ordinance may carry the nine official amendments moved by the government during passage of the Bill in Lok Sabha, which seeks to replace the executive order. A meeting of the Union Cabinet on Wednesday had given “post facto approval” to those amendments.
There is buzz in government circles that the ruling dispensation may accept some tweaking of the consent clause, which was done away with in the original ordinance. It may agree to reintroduce the provision of taking farmers’ consent for acquiring land. The earlier 80% consent requirement can be reduced to 51%.
Nitish running govt with ‘useless people’
Asserting that there could be no comparison between PM Narendra Modi and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Friday said the latter was “just running a government with useless people who cheat the public”. “There can be no comparison between Modi and Kumar. Modi is running the country, not the government, while Kumar is just running a government with useless people who have cheated the public,” he said. He also slammed Kumar for joining hands with Lalu Yadav who has been convicted in the fodder scam.
Sonia flays govt on land bill
Rejecting the dialogue offer on the controversial Land Bill, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Friday alleged it was a mockery of the consensus building exercise by a “myopic” Narendra Modi government which was “bending backwards”to favour industrialists and demanded that the UPA’s legislation be brought back in totality. “The proposition of a post-facto debate after unilateral imposition of the anti-farmer law is mockery of building partisan consesus,” Gandhi said in a reply to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.
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