Stand off ahead of monsoon session

New Delhi: Two all-party meetings held a day before the monsoon session of Parliament failed to soften the stand-off between the government and the Congress with the latter sticking to its position, especially on the controversies over Lalit Modi and the Vyapam scam.

This was in spite of prime minister Narendra Modi reaching out to all parties saying normal functioning of Parliament was the government’s responsibility but should be shared by all. Read more

The opposition has been vocal disrupting parliamentary proceedings that begin on Tuesday. This spells bad news for the Modi government which will be unable to make headway on the passage of two crucial bills dealing with land acquisition and tax reforms.

“The Congress Party would approach this session in the same spirit that the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government has approached every session of Parliament from 2004 to 2014,” Congress leader Manish Tiwari told HuffPost India. “The current finance minister (Arun Jaitley) and the former leader of the opposition (Sushma Swaraj) said that blocking Parliament was a legitimate parliamentary tactic,” he said. “We will be using this legitimately parliamentary tactic to the fullest.”

The party said it will not allow Parliament to function unless external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan step down. But the NDA seems unfazed. Parliamentary affairs minister M. Venkaiah Naidu retorted on Monday, “There is no question of accepting any ultimatum from anybody.” Read more

Paralysis in Parliament will be a setback to the Modi government, which has a wide range of bills ranging from real estate to juvenile justice, and consumer protection to mental health, waiting in the wings to be discussed and approved by lawmakers. Reports also state that hopes are low that the business-friendly laws central to Modi’s lofty reform agenda will gain traction.

While the BJP intends to discuss three contentious bills—land acquisition, a goods and services (GST) tax and a revision of labour laws—meant to bolster government’s move to attract foreign funds and enhance the overall ease of doing business in India, there are genuine fears that the monsoon session will be a complete washout.

IBN reports that Modi who rode to power on the anti-corruption platform a year ago will have to answer the charges levelled by opposition parties against some of his own Cabinet and party colleagues. Just a month after the budget session of Parliament, deemed to be one of the most productive sessions , several scams hit the BJP-led NDA government.

The Congress, meanwhile, sounded its war bugle on the eve of the session, announcing that its women’s wing will gherao Parliament with Mahila Congress workers from across the nation showing up in the Capital. Read more

Here are five issues that may rock this monsoon session.