Rajya Sabha was adjourned on Wednesday as the govt wanted to table the Whistleblowers bill while the BJP and Left wanted to debate the Lokpal bill first.
The Rajya Sabha was adjourned on Wednesday as the government wanted to table the Whistleblowers bill while the BJP and the Left wanted to debate the Lokpal bill first. While party leaders were arguing, deputy chairman K Rahman Khan announced that the Lokpal bill would be taken up on Thursday.
Congress floor managers were busy working out the numbers on Wednesday, keeping in mind what happened in the LS on Tuesday. It was a loss of face for the Congress as it goofed up with the numbers and the Lokpal did not get a constitutional status though the bill was passed.
The Congress has 71 members, while its allies have 23 in the 243-member Rajya Sabha (there are two vacancies). Of the allies, the DMK has seven, the Trinamool Congress six, the NCP seven, the National Conference two and the RLD one, which takes the UPA total to 94. The party also enjoys the support of some one-member parties, some independents and some nominated members, taking this total to 14.
On the Opposition side, the BJP has 51, the Left parties have 19, the JD(U) 8, the BJD 6, the AIADMK 5, the TDP and the Shiv Sena 4 each, the Akali Dal 3 and the AGP 2.
A cabinet minister described Tuesday night’s fiasco in the Lok Sabha as “bad floor management”. “But then the SP, the BSP and the RJD walked out before the voting,” he said. Congress floor managers hope that the BSP (18), the SP (5) and the RJD (4) would be absent when the bill is tabled in the Rajya Sabha today. And if their hopes come true, the halfway mark would go down to 108.
Earlier in the day, when the Congress tried to table the Whistleblowers bill, SS Ahluwalia of the BJP said, “We do not want to discuss it. We want the Lokpal bill first,” he said. Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) too said the same thing. The BJP leader said the bills should be discussed separately.
It is unlikely that the Rajya Sabha would discuss anything other than the Lokpal as the extended session ends today. A congress leader said if the party failed to get the Lokpal bill passed, a joint session might be convened before the budget session that normally starts in the second week of February.
The BJP, it seems, is all charged up after it managed to block the constitutional status to Lokpal. Arun Jaitley, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has prepared an exhaustive list of amendments to the bill. A senior BJP leader said that they would target the government on the Lokayuktas, the CBI and the reservation of minorities in the proposed Lokpal.
— With Agency inputs
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