With most of its legislations stuck due to disruptions in Parliament, the Government is considering extending the Monsoon Session till September 5 so that the food security, land acquisition and other important Bills could be cleared.
The Government has proposed extending the session from August 30 to September 5, but a final decision would be taken only after consulting floor leaders of other parties. The matter will be discussed at the Business Advisory Committee meeting on Friday for a final decision on it.
Speaker Meira Kumar, who was earlier scheduled to go abroad in the first week of September, has cancelled her trip to facilitate the session’s extension. Also, efforts are on to convince leaders of various political parties on the issue as most of the about 40 listed Bills for the Monsoon Session are still pending.
Kumar is also likely to call an all-party meeting to resolve the impasse on the resolution suspending 10 MPs - four from TDP and six from Congress - for protesting against division of Andhra Pradesh and disrupting the lok Sabha proceedings due to which the food Bill could not be passed.
The Congress leadership is apparently unhappy with the Speaker’s refusal to name and suspend these MPs for unruly behaviour on her own as she had done in the past for MPs demanding Telangana. But it wants the Speaker to resolve the matter and is willing to take back the resolution if there is a difficulty in its adoption.
The Government is also blaming the BJP leadership for going back on the broad consensus arrived earlier that the latter will walkout when the resolution for suspending MPs is brought in the House for approval.
“Since the Parliament has passed even the Budget in a din, the Government can do the same with the food security Bill, but the Congress would want a proper debate on the issue,” party spokesman Sandeep Dikshit said.However, in case the Opposition does not agree to the Government’s proposal for extending the House and does not allow the food Bill, the other option for the Government is to re-promulgate the Ordinance with some amendments.
Significantly, the ongoing session has seen the Rajya Sabha working better than the lok Sabha, which has not been able to pass any major legislation due to disruptions on a slew of issues. The Government feels the Opposition is intentionally disrupting the lok Sabha on some pretext or other as it does not want to allow passage of the food security Bill.