The Budget Session of Parliament starts on Monday with farmers, middle class, and business community expecting major sops and concession in the last full-fledged Budget of the Modi Government ahead of the next year’s lok Sabha polls. Another prime legislative agenda of the Government is passage of the triple talaq Bill.
The Government has sent mixed signal about the contour of the Budget. While several reports have indicated that the Government may loosen its purse string for several sections of the populace, especially farmers and middle class, in a recent interview, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed that his Government will stay on the course of the reforms agenda (through the Budget) that has pulled out India from being ‘fragile five’ economies of the world to being a ‘bright spot’.
“Those who have seen me as the Chief Minister (of Gujarat) and also as the PM (would know) common man does not want all these things. It is a myth,” he said while prefacing that the subject falls under the ambit of the Finance Minister,” Modi said in the interview.
At the same time, Modi did acknowledge farm distress, saying it is the responsibility of the Centre and the State Governments to identify and address farmers’ issues.
The session will also witness the Government making all out efforts to pass key pending Bills, including politically sensitive triple talaq Bill by narrowing down the differences on it with the Opposition, particularly the Congress. There is a thinking in the Opposition that triple talaq should be de-criminalised as its current provision lands the erring husband in the jail.
A day before the start of the session, the Government on Sunday met leaders of several political parties in Parliament House and sought their cooperation in ensuring its success.
The meeting was attended by Modi, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar, besides the Opposition leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress) Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP), D Raja (CPI), Kanimozhi (DMK), Derek O’Brien and Sudip Bandhopadhyay (TMC) and Tariq Anwar (NCP). Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kumar termed the all-party meeting “fruitful”.
While the Government wants to push the Bill on instant triple talaq pending in the Rajya Sabha along with the one which seeks to grant constitutional status to the OBC Commission, the Opposition plans to counter the government on issues such as rising incidents of rapes, alleged “attack” on constitutional institutions and the plight of traders.
“We want to raise these issues as they are important. The Government should adopt a cooperative attitude and allow the opposition to raise these issues,” Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said.
President Ramnath Kovind will address the joint sitting of the two Houses on Monday and the Economic Survey will be tabled on the same day.
The first phase of the session will be from January 29 to February 9. After a recess, Parliament will meet again from March 5 to April 6.
In the previous Winter Session that concluded on January 5, both the Houses had passed 12 Bills, including the Indian Forest (Amendment) bill , 2017, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (amendment ) Bill , 2018, and the Companies (amendment) Bill, 2017.