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Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi on Wednesday refused to draw Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee into any controversy over a report that Chatterjee had threatened to resign unless the government holds another session of the House in February.
Even before both Houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die on Tuesday, Ravi said that a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs had been fixed with the agenda of proroguing them, to have a fresh session in February with the Presidential address on the first day.
As such the government had decided on its own to prorogue Parliament and not under any threat, he affirmed at an post-session press conference, pointing out that Home Minister P Chidambaram had announced last week that another session would be held in February while moving the anti-terror laws in the Lok Sabha.
Minister of State Pawan Bansal said that there was never the government's intent to prolong the current session as was done since July in case of the Lok Sabha.
Bansal, who also holds the finance portfolio, said the short February session would be utilised to take a vote-on-account for the government expenditure for the first three or four months of the new financial year. A full-fledged budget is never presented in an election year as the practice is to leave it for the new government elected after the elections to formulate the budget, Bansal said.
On the Rajya Sabha Chairman taking exception to a score of Bills getting passed without debate and the government steamrolling over a dozen Bills in the Lok Sabha, in the last two days without any debate, Ravi said the government was also not happy about it since Parliament's prime job is legislation. "However, what can we do when so much time is wasted in disturbances in the House," Ravi said.
Ravi used the same ploy of disturbances to explain away the new record of Parliament meeting for the least number of days in 2008. Yes, the government wants that Parliament should meet a minimum of 100 days in a year, but what use is it if more days do not result in more legislative business on account of disruptions and adjournments, the minister from Kerala said.
The Lok Sabha held 46 sittings and the Rajya Sabha 44 during this year.
On the controversial insurance Bill for raising FDI (foreign direct investment) ceiling in the insurance sector from 26 to 49 per cent, his deputy Bansal said it would now go before the House select committee for scrutiny and the government has an "open mind" on any changes the committee recommends. The Left is also represented on the
committee to air its point of view, Bansal said.
Both Ravi and Bansal said the Left's protest at the insurance Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha can be understood but its objection to another LIC (Amendment) Bill was altogether unwarranted as it does not aim at privatisation as claimed by the Left members but only provides for raising its base capital from Rs 5 crores to Rs 100 crores to help
it discharge the social responsibilities in the form of various insurance schemes for the weaker sections of the society.
Asked about the Antulay controversy, Ravi's deputy V Narayanasamy quipped, "Issue band ho gaya (The issue is closed)" as already stated by the PM. Ravi, however, laid stress on Para 13 of the Home Minister's statement depreciating questions raised over the probe conducted by slain Mumbai Anti-Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has to explain about the bandh it had called just before the 26/11 terror incident to protest against that probe by Karkare, Ravi asserted and pointed out that not to be forgotten was Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray threatening in his party's mouthpiece Saamna to publish names of the family members of Karkare and other ATS officers to let people spit on their faces for trapping Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and serving colonel Purohit and other Hindu activists on the charges of terrorist attacks.