Parl logjam: Key hurdle lies in Rajya Sabha, says Sharma

Even as the FDI in retail issue heats up the Parliament, Congress is confident of having majority votes in their favour.

According to Vinod Sharma, political editor of Hindustan Times, "In Parliament you can only know the past and not the future. You never know what happens on the floor of the House. On the face of it, the Congress and the UPA seems to have mustered the requisite numbers in the Lok Sabha with the assurance perhaps that at least one of the two allies will vote in favour and another might abstain or both might vote or both might abstain. In either case, they may be able to have the resolution of the opposition defeated in the Lok Sabha." Also Read: FDI in multi-brand retail: Is India ready for it now? Sharma further added, "Big challenge is going to be in the Rajya Sabha where they are dismally short of numbers and the Samajwadi Party is keeping its whole strategy very opaque and very unclear. One will have to see whether it will be a repeat of the Lokpal Bill where the Congress and the UPA could manage a majority in the Lok Sabha, but there was a major lock-jam in the Rajya Sabha." Trying to analyse the situation from the opposition's side, Sharma said, "At this stage, the Samajwadi Party and BSP would really push to embarrass the government. Politically, they will not like to be seen as voting together with the BJP against the UPA. So, this is one ray of hope for the UPA and the Congress. We will get to know about it better next week when the debate starts in the Lok Sabha and preparations are afoot for the debate in the Rajya Sabha."