Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely (file photo)Though the Monsoon Session of Parliament, especially the Rajya Sabha, was a complete washout, the Narendra Modi Government has not given up hope of getting the Goods and Services Tax Bill passed before November.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley wants to meet the deadline of implementing the new tax law from the next financial year beginning in April, 2016. As expected, the government did not prorogue the monsoon sessions of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, so that the sessions still remain alive and can be summoned at short notice.
Jaitley is leading a compact team in the cabinet, which has been asked to work out strategies to ensure that Parliament works for a short two-day session so that the constitution is amended to make the goods and services tax a possibility. Other key ministers include Rajnath Singh (Home), Nitin Gadkari (Surface Transport) and Venkaiah Naidu (Surface Transport), all three of whom who have been national presidents of BJP. The senior minister have been tasked with talking to opposition parties to work out a middle path.
When the Session ended with Rajya Sabha not passing a single Bill and Lok Sabha doing some non essential work on August 13, a few senior leaders felt the situation could have been handled differently.
Some members were of the opinion that Venkaiah Naidu and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi were too aggressive in taunting the opposition repeatedly, and should have left the attack to other leaders so that they could work back channels.
Meanwhile, there were others who felt that senior leaders L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, who have been sidelined despite being members of Lok Sabha, could have been used for approaching non Congress opposition parties, with whose leaders Advani has an excellent rapport due to long years of opposition unity efforts.
But Prime Minister Modi and party president Amit Shah were averse to yielding to compromise formula and felt that the people should judge and punish Congress for what they described as obstructionist and anti-development tactics.
A sober realisation after the session is that the NDA does not have a simple majority in the Rajya Sabha, let alone the special majority needed to pass a constitutional amendment.
Further, chairman Hamid Ansari would allow for steamrolling the chaotic House by ordering mass suspensions of Opposition members, as was done by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan who suspended 25 congress MPs for five days, as they showed placards and obstructed proceedings.
Whenever there were strong protests, Ansari was of the view that it is better that such disciplining is done by the majority of the Rajya Sabha. The government is also planning to ask President Pranab Mukherjee, who has a long experience in Parliament and is known for problem solving skills, to help the passage of the goods and services tax bill, which has been pending for long.
But the Congress had led the protests and demanded resignation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj over the grant of travel papers to cricket entrepreneur Lalit Modi by United Kingdom. Congress leaders are insisting that they would not give up their tactics unless the government resiles from its rigid stand, though no one officially commits to what is the minimum the party wants.
Senior leaders feel that if the government were to order an independent inquiry into the role of Sushma Swaraj in the Lalit Modi affair and also shift her during the probe period to another period, then the Congress would definitely consider a rethinking. But these suggestions had been out-rightly rejected by the government during the Monsoon Session, as it took a stand that there was no impropriety. The government had counterattacked that it was the UPA government and its Finance Minister P. Chidambaram who had botched up the money laundering investigations against Lalit Modi.
It would be interesting to see whether the government would concede on the demands for changes in the Goods and Services Tax Bill demanded by the Congress, so that it could be the starting point for negotiations, that will depend much on Arun Jaitley's negotiating skills.
Tailpiece: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is much relieved after the BJP did spectacularly well in local body elections. He made more than 100 calls to tell central ministers, party office bearers and BJP chief ministers about his massive win. The public relations exercise worked as most of them issued statements or tweets hailing Chouhan's leadership, despite the thick controversy of Vyapam scam, which had engulfed the chief minister.
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