The Monsoon session of parliament which began today, will see government push for the GST bill. On Sunday, in the wake of the session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an all-party meeting asking party men to keep “national interest” in mind and not worry about the credit. On one hand the government will focus on the GST bill after majority of the parties like Trinamool congress, BJD, Samajwadi party backed the reform whereas on the other, the opposition, primarily Congress, which finds itself increasingly isolated on GST issue will focus on rising political instability in Kashmir and the government’s attempts to destabilise state governments. The Arunachal and Kashmir issue will ensure a stormy session.
Addressing an all-party meeting called by the government on Sunday, Mr. Modi said, “GST is of national importance; the issue here is not which government gets credit for its passage. All of us represent both the people and parties and let’s keep national interests above everything else.” In the meeting he also thanked all political parties for the stand taken by them on the recent incidents in Jammu and Kashmir. The next meeting between government and Congress is expected to take place on Tuesday.
The following set of bills is supposed to be considered in the Rajya Sabha for passing:
- The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012.
- The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2016.
- The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016.
The following bills will be introduced in the Lok Sabha:
- The Dentists (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
- The National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
- The Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
Prime minister Narendra Modi, flanked by Parliament Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar, MoS Muktar Abbas Naqvi and MoS PMO Jitender Singh arrived at the parliament at around 10:30 am and spoke about observing high standards of discussions and the importance of constructive discussions. At around 11 am the Lok Sabha session began and new ministers took their oaths, Piyush Goel takes oath as Rajya Sabha member and Kapil Sibal and Amar Singh as Rajya Sabha Members of Parliament. Rajya Sabha, newly inducted members take oath. Mr. Naqvi takes oath as MP from Jharkhand. Nirmala Sitharaman takes oath as member from Karnataka
Later at around 11:30, the Lok Sabha is adjourned for the day after obituary references by the Speaker. Soon the Rajya Sabha proceedings began with Vice President Hamid Ansari chairing the proceedings and speaking on terror acts across the world. Calling them condemnable, he says the world should unite against it. The House stands in silence to mourn the loss of lives.
Soon the session commenced, at around 12: 20 BSP chief Mayawati talked about atrocities against Dalits, especially the Gujarat incident where cow vigilantes thrashed four Dalit people. She says ever since BJP government took over in Centre, Dalits are being exploited all over and leveled allegations of the BJP having a ‘casteist’ mindset. The allegations were subjected to objection by Venkaiah Naidu for naming the BJP. This was followed by Sitaram Yechury asking to suspend Question Hour to discuss price rise and some members storming the well.
The Rajya Sabha was briefly adjourned for 10 minutes and after that the entire discussion shifted to Ganga Rejuvenation Programme with Subramanian Swamy asking if the dams at Ganga are resulting in it drying up and Uma Bharati assuring of proper measures being followed.
Latest: The question hour has ended in the parliament with the government agreeing to Congress’ demand to discuss the Kashmir issue in parliament.
