Land ordinance to be tabled today as LS session resumes

KV Prasad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 19

The Narendra Modi government will be up against a combined Opposition onslaught when the second half of the Budget session of Parliament resumes its sitting from tomorrow.

The attack from the Opposition is expected to be much more pronounced in the wake of developments since Parliament went into recess last month.

For one, the Congress, which is the principal party in the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, appeared to have discovered that its charge against the Modi government of working against the interest of farmers and for the rich has found resonance among the people.

Adding to it, will be the unity move among the fractured Janata groups who have reinvented themselves as one large re-united family with socialist leanings. Sitaram Yechury’s election as the new general secretary of the CPM is bound to provide greater vigour to a decimated Left inside Parliament.

The ruling coalition’s parliamentary managers will have to work their way through this political landmine to ensure the passage of the Bill to replace the ordinance on land acquisition. The Bill is stuck in the Rajya Sabha where the Opposition enjoys a majority.

The ordinance re-promulgated last month will be introduced in the Lok Sabha tomorrow. The version is the same as the one the House passed with nine amendments during the first half of the session.

Rajya Sabha’s approval remains an issue and the House will reconvene on April 23, since it was prorogued to enable the government to re-promulgate the land ordinance.

The government has some three weeks to get a parliamentary nod, failing which the re-promulgated ordinance will lapse.

The options are that either the Rajya Sabha considers and rejects the Bill which would pave the way for the government to call a joint session in which the overall numbers would work in favour of the government.

Aware of this, the Opposition could stall a decision by insisting on sending the Bill to a Select Committee as it did in the case of the Insurance Bill. However, for the report to come before the Rajya Sabha adjourns on May 13 and other details are matters for negotiation.

Failing which, the ordinance will lapse again and the government may have to go to the President to renew it for the third time.