The Modi government, now feeling the heat, has decided to focus first on completing all financial business, leading to the passage of the Finance Bill, by April 29, before seeking the Opposition’s cooperation to clear legislation relating to a Goods and Services Tax, tackling the problem of black money as well as land acquisition.
Top government sources expressed confidence that The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Second Amendment) Bill, 2014 — whose passage will see the installing of the GST architecture — and the Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill 2015 intended to tackle black money would be enacted in this session. It is still not clear which of these two will be taken up first, as the legislation dealing with black money is a money Bill and will therefore does not have to go the Rajya Sabha.
These sources were, however, not quite as sanguine about getting through amendments to the 2013 Land Acquisition Act.
Not in a hurry: Venkaiah Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, speaking on parliamentary business this week, said, “We will have discussions on demands for grants, Finance Bill, Black Money Bill, then we will take up GST. There is no question of rushing things through but.. people are becoming impatient: they want decisions to be taken early.”
This sequencing of parliamentary business follows an Opposition walkout led by the newly combative Congress on Friday to protest against the surreptitious manner in which the government was attempting to push through the GST Bill that will replace the plethora of taxes currently in place. Indeed, again on Monday, the GST Bill had been listed for consideration and passage — but now that has been deferred till after the Finance Bill is cleared.
The BJP’s parliamentary managers have realised that as they have to bank on the Congress to back the GST Bill, as the latter had introduced it during UPA rule, it serves little purpose to annoy them by trying to pass it before Parliament approves the Finance Bill, the centrepiece of the Budget Session.
Two, even as the Opposition continues to demand that the black money Bill should be referred to a Standing Committee, the government, top ministerial sources said, is confident that it will be able to push it through in its current form in the Lok Sabha as it has the numbers to do so. Besides, as it is a money bill, it does not have to go to the Rajya Sabha where the government is outnumbered.
Meanwhile, an anxious government is trying to delink — in public opinion — the death of farmer Gajendra Singh from not just the agrarian crisis but also the amendments it wants to bring to the 2013 Land Acquisition Act. But it simultaneously made clear that it had no intention of restoring either consent clause or the social impact assessment.
If the government’s game plan is to clear the Land Bill in the Lok Sabha and then go for a joint sitting after it is rejected in the RS, the Opposition still remains determined not to allow it to be taken up in the Upper House — in which case, the ordinance will lapse again.
