As PM Hopes for ’Constructive Session,’ Government Braces for Storm Over Land Bill

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, April 20, 2015:  Parliament resumes today for the second part of the Budget session, which promises to be a political scorcher. The Narendra Modi government is determined to push as much legislative business as it can, including its controversial land bill. The opposition is determined to derail those plans.

   

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted early this morning, "Parliament  session begins today. I look forward to a productive session, filled with constructive debates on several issues."
   
While the Lok Sabha reconvenes today, the Rajya Sabha will start a new session from Thursday, April 23. It was prorogued to allow the government to issue a new ordinance or emergency order on land acquisition, incorporating nine amendments cleared by the Lok Sabha in the first part of the Budget session.
   
The government will today procedurally table the new land ordinance in the Lok Sabha. A discussion on the present agrarian crisis in the country will also be held. The Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge said his party will participate in today’s debate. But, he said, the party will "oppose tooth and nail" the land bill which will be brought to ratify the ordinance.
   
At a big farmers’ rally in Delhi on Sunday, the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi and his mother and party president Sonia Gandhi vowed to scuttle the land bill. The Congress had last month led a united opposition in stalling the bill in the Rajya Sabha or Upper House, where the government is in a minority.
   
The Congress says PM Modi’s proposed land reforms are "anti-poor" and "anti-farmer.". In a scathing speech yesterday, Rahul Gandhi, on a comeback after a 57-day sabbatical, alleged, "Modiji won the election with loans from big industrialists for marketing. He will pay back that loan now by giving your land to those industrialists."
   
Hours before the Congress rally, PM Modi had asserted at a workshop of BJP lawmakers, "From the day I became PM, I have been working for the poor... We are in public life not to enjoy power but for the welfare of the poor," adding that biased critics of his government have "perverted minds."
   
PM Modi also said, "It is more beneficial if the opposition attacks the government, however fierce it may be, inside Parliament." He cited the poor productivity of Parliament in the last six or seven years before the BJP government came to power and noted that it has gone "up to 125 per cent" because his party won a majority.
   
The BJP hit back at Rahul Gandhi asking him to apologise for "insulting the people’s mandate." Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also said in a dig at the Congress leader, "How many times will the Congress re-launch Rahul Gandhi?"
   
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu has asked BJP MPs to be present in Parliament right through the session. In another jibe at Rahul Gandhi, Mr Naidu told party MPs that they should take "sabbaticals" or leave for "introspection" only after the session.
   
The Modi government’s land bill aims at making the acquisition of land for industrial and infrastructural projects easier. The Congress says any shift from the law its government brought in 2013 is a betrayal of farmers.

 

Courtesy: NDTV