After a promising start, the Winter Session of the Parliament turned out to be a damp squib, like the Monsoon Session before it.
The drama that enfolded during the two sessions were similar. In the monsoon session, the Opposition stalled proceedings by demanding the resignation of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, BJP chief ministers Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh; this time they were calling for finance minister Arun Jaitley's head for his alleged role in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) irregularities.
These events and the ensuing discussions but of course took precedence over a debate on key reforms such as the Goods and Service Tax (GST) Bill and the Bankruptcy Bill. In light of this, even the mention of the Real Estate Bill and the Land Bill seemed over-ambitious.
But how long can this state of legislative paralysis sustain? Already, the aam aadmi — the ones who have elected the Parliamentarians — are getting fed up with the sorry state of affairs. So much so, that as many as over 48,000 people, including industrialists, supported a signature campaign on Wednesday, launched by industry body CII urging members of Parliament to allow the passage of the GST Bill.
Additionally, a survey by instaVaani shows that three out of four people think the Congress was wrong in disrupting the Winter session, a Mint report states. Going by the report, it appears as though the Congress is losing support by the day. "Just 24 percent of those surveyed feel the Congress is right in obstructing Parliament, compared with 43 percent in August, suggesting a clear erosion of support for its actions," Mint says. 522 people across the six major metros of New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad participated in the survey and 76 percent of the respondents said the Opposition led by the Congress is not right in disrupting Parliament.
"In fact, if the Congress wants to block the GST Bill due to the National Herald case in the Budget Session, it may stand isolated. Other political parties by and large are happy with the GST Bill," senior columnist Shekhar Gupta told CNBC-TV18 in an interview on Thursday.
Separately, speaking at the sidelines of the annual general meeting of industry lobby Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), Supreme Court judge AK Sikri, recently said: "Why not have certain issues, those issues which will be for economic development, maybe social issues also, and other kinds of issues? Why should we not shed our party politics, come together, sit together, all the leaders of the different parties, and devise some common programme for the development of the country? It may include GST (goods and services tax), it may include SEZs (special economic zones), it may include even land acquisition," another Mint report stated.
The Economic Times also reported that the NDA plans to launch a massive campaign against Congress after the Winter Session of Parliament to take the message to people about the main Opposition party's bid to "stall" key legislative measures in the Rajya Sabha, where the government does not have a majority.
However, only time will tell whether the Rajya Sabha be willing to lend a ear to key reforms, which can help lift the economy, or whether the Budget session of the Parliament too will be drowned in the cacophony that passes off as debate.
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