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NEW DELHI: Parliament has become a cat and mouse game between the Modi government and the Opposition,with an increasingly desperate government seeking to convert its controversial Ordinances into the law even as the Opposition moves to thwart what the MP’s said was an attempt “to subvert Parliamentary democracy.”
The first few days of the budget session have driven the Modi government into a corner with the opposition placing it in the dock on the issue of land acquisition and foiling an attempt to hold a joint session of Parliament to pass the bills on coal and mines allocations, increase in the ceiling for foreign capital in the insurance sector and the Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill.
Instead Prime Minister Narendra Modi came under attack from his own allies on the provisions of the Land Acquisition Bill even as farmers marched to Delhi to join protests on the issue of land, making it very clear that any government could ignore this powerful constituency only at its own risk.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley defended the government position in the Rajya Sabha, for the most part reiterating the known position that has not cut ice with either the opposition parties, or the NDA allies, or the farmers organisations that want the Bill to be revoked. Jaitley tried to convince the House that the amendments were more pro-farmer than the original Bill, a stance rejected by the opposition altogether. The government has assured the other political parties that it will hold consultations before proceeding with the Bill. However, opposition MPs remained sceptical about this, more so after Jaitley told the Rajya Sabha not to become an obstacle to development.
The murmured threat by BJP ‘sources’ to the media to get the controversial Bills through by convening a joint session of Parliament seems to have been effectively foiled for the moment. The government cannot, given the opposition from its allies and the entire, united opposition, persuade the President to convene a joint session to get what is a controversial piece of legislation passed. The Land Acquisition Bill, in the face of the opposition both within and without Parliament, is thus stymied for the moment.
In the midst of this the government moved to pull out the above three Bills from the Rajya Sabha and introduce them instead in the Lok Sabha. It must be remembered here that the government has a majority in the Lok Sabha where it can easily get these Bills passed, but not in the Rajya Sabha where the Opposition support is necessary for any Bill to be cleared.
The reason for trying to do this was to then build a case for a joint session of Parliament to get all these corporate friendly legislations through.
Under the Constitution of India a joint session of Parliament can be convened only in special circumstances:
If after a Bill has been passed by one House and transmitted to the other House
(a) the Bill is rejected by the other House; or
(b) the Houses have finally disagreed as to the amendments to be made in the Bill;
or
(c) more than six months elapse from the date of the reception of the Bill by the other House without the Bill being passed by it the President may, unless the Bill has lapsed by reason of a dissolution of the House of the People, notify to the Houses by message if they are sitting or by public notification if they are not sitting, his intention to summon them to meet in a joint sitting for the purpose of deliberating and voting on the Bill:
Provided that nothing in this clause shall apply to a Money Bill”.
The government in trying to pull out the three Bills from the Rajya Sabha was trying to ensure that after these were cleared by the Lok Sabha, it could use the first point to justify a joint session of Parliament. In that after being cleared by the one House, and rejected by the other, the joint session can be convened to break the impasse and get the legislation passed.
However, there is no such rule if the first House itself---and in this case it is teh Rajya Sabha---does not clear the Bills. And a joint session, thus, cannot be convened as per the provisions of the Indian Constitution.
The Opposition thus stopped the government from withdrawing the bills from the Rajya Sabha, said that the Bills having been introduced in the Upper House were now its property, and hence the government was violating the rules by trying to withdraw the Bills. And hence unless one House approves a Bill, and the other House rejects it which has not happened in the case of the Coal and Insurance Bills, the government cannot ask for a joint session to clear these.
However, this is just the beginning of the ‘battle’ as some Opposition leaders described it in Parliament. However, it is after a long time that a government is facing a united, and tough Opposition in Parliament that despite its low numbers in the Lok Sabha is managing to use the rules and the Constitution to successfully thwart some of the more anti-people measures that the Modi government is seeking to bring in, in its avowed desire to please the corporates. The fate of the Land Acquisition Bill is being watched closely by the big business in India, while the Insurance Bill is of particular interest to the American multinationals.
The government is caught between the corporates and the farmer insofar as the Land Acquisition Bill and will have to take a position, eventually, between one or the other. The Opposition will in all likelihood insist on a complete roll back, rejecting compromises that might be suggested and even accepted by some of the allies. The result is that the government then will have to do without the support of the corporates for whom this Bill is a litmus test for the Modi government, or of the farmers that as a powerful constituency has made its displeasure felt all across the country, starting with the vote for the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi Assembly elections.
