Finance bill over privilege; NDA walks out of Parliament

There was complete pandemonium in Parliament on Tuesday after the BJP moved a privilege motion against prime minister (PM) Manmohan Singh.

Parliamentary proceedings came to a standstill with the Rajya Sabha being adjourned thrice and the Lok Sabha once. While the opposition wanted a discussion regarding the PM’s response to a WikiLeaks revelation that the Congress had paid cash to get votes and win the 2008 trust vote, the government insisted that the finance bill should be taken up first in the Lok Sabha.

After the BJP-led NDA opposition members in the Lok Sabha walked out in protest against the speaker’s decision to not allow a discussion on the cash-for-votes scam, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee moved the finance bill. He wanted the bill to be taken up first to ensure that the constitutional requirement of completing the budget approval by Parliament is met, as the session would conclude in the next few days. 

“I do not think heaven is going to fall if we take up the finance bill first,” Mukherjee said. “I assure you that we will have the discussion after the Bill is passed. I am not making it a prestige issue.”

Expressing regret that the opposition chose to remain absent from discussing the bill, Mukherjee said, “I feel sad I have to get the approval in the absence of principal opposition parties.”

During the course of his speech, the finance minister announced a rollback of 5% service tax on healthcare and excise relief to small-scale firms in the readymade garments business to tide over the impact of customs duty. The house later approved the bill, including some point-by-point clauses, by voice vote.

Earlier in the day, opposition leaders in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley moved the privilege motion against the prime minister for “misleading” the house with his remark that an inquiry panel had not found enough evidence to prove that the Congress had used money to win the 2008 trust vote.