Budget session | Another washout on the cards?

New Delhi: The fate of the upcoming budget session is up in the air, in keeping with the unfortunate trend of a controversy erupting just weeks before a session of Parliament.

Though the odds favour a washout, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached out to the opposition and called for an all-party meeting on Tuesday.

In the past week, things have gotten acrimonious between the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and a united opposition, triggering fears of an unproductive budget session of Parliament.

The budget session is scheduled to commence on 23 February.

“The government wants the budget session to function normally because Union and railway budgets will be presented (during it), and crucial bills have to be passed,” said a cabinet minister who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The meeting comes a day after a group of lawyers assaulted mediapersons covering a case involving the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar for sedition, as well as students and bystanders.

Kumar is alleged to have voiced anti-India sentiments during an event organized on the campus protesting the 2013 execution of Afzal Guru, convicted for the December 2001 attack on Parliament.

“The BJP-led NDA government is unnecessarily trying to change the identity of JNU by imposing its own brand of thinking. For them, the ideology of RSS is nationalism and those who do not believe in that are anti-nationals. The saffron party should explain if attending a ceremony on Nathuram Godse, killer of Mahatma Gandhi, by BJP leaders is example of nationalism,” said Nitish Kumar, Bihar chief minister, and Janata Dal (United) leader.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has always considered Godse a hero, although the BJP itself has been diplomatically ambivalent about him.

Some see the BJP’s response to the happenings on JNU, traditionally a leftist stronghold, as ham-handed and excessive. Home minister Rajnath Singh has claimed that the protests on campus were supported by Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the banned terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) will “ take up the JNU issue in Parliament along with a host of other issues. This (JNU) has become a very serious issue, especially seeing the way our office was attacked,” a senior leader of the party said, speaking on condition of anonymity. His reference was to the attack on his party’s office in Delhi, soon after the JNU controversy. This person added that the party would also raise these issues in the meeting called by Modi.

The arrest of Kumar has united the opposition, including Congress, the Left parties, the JD(U) and the Aam Aadmi Party, which has already announced a magisterial probe to establish the authenticity of evidence produced against Kumar.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has thrown his weight behind the issue and visited the JNU campus to address protesting students.

“The Modi government is suppressing the voice of democracy, the voice of freedom, the freedom of expression and voice of the young students and there is a pattern to it across the country... It is a part of concerted conspiracy as also intolerant behaviour on the part of Modi government,” Randeep Surjewala, chief spokesperson of the Congress, said on Monday.

The Congress has already taken up the suicide of PhD student Rohith Vemula at the Hyderabad Central University.

The BJP hit back at the Congress and its vice-president.

“I want to ask Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi if imposition of Emergency in 1975 is the definition of democratic values of Congress party. Whether Indira Gandhi’s mentality was not like Hitler for imposing Emergency? I want to ask Rahul Gandhi if he has joined hands with anti-national forces by supporting anti-India slogans at JNU? Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi should answer to the people of the country,” BJP president Amit Shah wrote in his blog on Monday.

Political analysts say the NDA has to brace for a setback. “Budget session is likely to be a washout not only because of JNU controversy but also because of the death of Rohith Vemula. The stand taken by home minister Rajnath Singh and HRD (human resource development) minister Smriti Irani has made it even more difficult for the BJP to wriggle out of this situation,” said Abhay Kumar Dubey, a New Delhi-based political analyst associated with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

If the meeting fails to elicit the desired response, it could be a setback to the BJP-led NDA. This is because the government is due to put out its economic blueprint to revive investment when it presents the Union and railway budget.

The NDA government’s third budget will be presented at a time when the finance minister faces the challenging task of reviving investments—by encouraging private investment as well as allocating higher funds for public investment in the budget—and addressing the pressing issue of rural distress within the fiscal constraints.

It is also looking to get legislative passage for the constitutional amendment bill to roll out the goods and service tax (GST) and the real estate bill.

The NDA needs a two-third majority in both Houses of Parliament to pass the constitutional amendment bill. The problem for the NDA is that it has only 63 MPs in the Rajya Sabha while it needs the support of 163 MPs to win passage for the bill.

The support of the Congress and Left parties is crucial for the government to pass the GST bill.

Anuja, Pretika Khanna and PTI contributed to this story.