Rahul Gandhi's rejection of ordinance indicates differences between Congress and UPA: Rajnath Singh

Reacting to Rahul Gandhi's description of the ordinance on convicted politicians as ‘complete nonsense’ and a document that needed to be torn and thrown away, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh on Friday said such statements clearly indicate that there are differences between the Congress Party and the UPA Government.

“I would like to ask Rahul Gandhi then what is his comment on the action of the Congress-led UPA Government,” Singh told media here.

“I think by looking at these kinds of statements, definitely anyone can say there are differences between the Congress Party and the Congress-led UPA Government. No one can deny it, now it is a well-known fact countrywide,” he added.

In a major embarrassment to the Congress-led UPA II Government, Rahul Gandhi dubbed the ordinance to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers as ‘complete nonsense’, and said it should be torn up and thrown away.

“I personally think what the government is doing on the ordinance is wrong. It was a political decision, every party does it, and there is a time to stop this nonsense,” Gandhi said.

“It is about time that political parties mind and stop making these type of compromises. If we actually want to stop corruption then we cannot make these compromises,” he added.

The fate of the proposed ordinance to bypass the apex court’s ruling on barring convicted MPs and MLAs looked uncertain yesterday after President Pranab Mukherjee summoned Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Law Minister Kapil Sibal to seek a clarification.

The Union Cabinet had approved an ordinance to reverse the Supreme Court judgment mandating the immediate disqualification of lawmakers convicted for a criminal offence punishable with a jail term of more than two years.

The ordinance seeks to reverse the Supreme Court judgement that had not only disqualified lawmakers convicted of offences with two years or more in jail, but also barred from contesting elections.

The ordinance will allow convicted legislators to continue in office, if the appeal against the conviction is admitted by a higher court within 90 days.

In a landmark verdict delivered on July 10, the apex court ruled that MPs or MLAs shall stand disqualified from holding the membership of the house from the date of conviction.

“The only question is about the vires of section 8 (4) of the Representation of the People Act (RPA) and we hold that it is ultra vires and that the disqualification takes place from the date of conviction,” said an apex court bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and S.J. Mukhopadhaya.

The apex court, however, said that its decision will not apply to MPs, MLAs or other lawmakers who have been convicted and have filed their appeals in the higher courts before the pronouncement of this verdict.

According to the provision of Representation of the People Act, a lawmaker cannot be disqualified in the event of his conviction in a criminal case if he or she files an appeal in the higher court.