Modi Sarkar falls back on Congress Land bill; break in NDA ranks forces govt to withdraw all amendments.
New Delhi : It has been accustomed to making U-turns on various policy issues. But now comes the biggest policy defeat so far, for the Modi Sarkar. After struggling for months to get Parliamentary approval for its Land Acquisition Bill 2015 re-issued more than once as an ordinance, the government has agreed to withdraw all the contentious clauses in it, including those related to consent and social impact assessment.
The Congress, however is not claiming victory as yet, and would like to wait for the final rites of the Land Bill 2015 before getting into celebratory mode.
This retreat came at the meeting of the joint select committee chaired by BJP member S S Ahluwalia after the ruling party found itself deserted by its allies like the Shiv Sena and opposed by regional players like the Biju Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the AIADMK. When the votes were assessed in the 30 member committee, it was outnumbered by 16:13 ( the chairman comes in only for resolving a tie) and thus the opposition demand to withdraw all the contentious clauses was accepted.
“It”s as good as our own Act of 2013,” a Congress member of the committee said after the meeting expressing total agreement with the amendments moved by the ruling BJP. Out of the total 15 amendments in the NDA bill, nine were substantial in nature that have been opposed by Congress and a number of Opposition parties.
Out of these nine, six including the provisions dealing with consent clause, social impact assessment, replacing the term private company with private entity were discussed today and a consensus has emerged on them, Congress members claimed.
The committee whose term was expiring today has been given an extension of four more days to complete its final report. It is expected to meet tomorrow.
Now it will be up to individual states to pass their own laws for business-friendly land reforms, a Plan B mooted earlier this month by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. However, according to constitutional experts, when a Central law exists on a subject, then the Central law has to be qualitatively better than the national law to pass legal muster.
It is worth recalling that all amendments proposed by Modi Sarkar had been opposed by a bulk of individuals and organisations that gave evidence in front of the select committee. Even representatives from the Sangh Parivar-linked organisations were in favour of going back to the Congress bill of 2013 that was passed unanimously by all parties including the BJP.
Asked if the government is going to back to the original Land Bill 2013, senior minister M Venkaiah Naidu said that when Parliament is in session, one is not supposed to make any policy statements and secondly, the issue has been referred to a joint committee whose meetings are going on.
“As a Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, I cannot violate the protocol and say something outside. The government is willing to go by any meaningful suggestion and if there is a way to arrive at a broad consensus, the government is willing,” he said.
He said that the government has been willing to work an extra mile to meet the demands of the opposition even in the case of GST bill, which was approved unanimously by the Lok Sabha and where “we agreed to the opposition demand to refer it to the select committee”.
He noted that with regard to the land bill which was approved by the Lok Sabha with over whelming majority, the government is keen but as a mark of respect to the opposition, their wish “we referred it to the joint committee”.
