Parliament set to see a stormy Budget Session
NEW DELHI: Seventeen opposition parties on Thursday announced that they will boycott President Ram Nath Kovind’s address to both houses of Parliament on Friday, the inaugural day of the Budget Session, to protest against three contentious farm laws passed by the Centre, setting the stage for a confrontation with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Only Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will not take part in the boycott, which parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi said the Opposition should reconsider.
“I appeal to leaders from all parties not to boycott the President’s address. The government is ready to discuss all issues threadbare and as much time as is required will be set aside when the business advisory committees of both Houses meet,” Joshi said.
Opposition parties intend to demand the repeal of the three farm laws passed in September that seek to ease restrictions in farm trade, allow traders to stockpile large quantities of food stocks for future sales and lay down a national framework for contract farming based on written agreements. Farmers say the laws will erode their bargaining power and leave them at the mercy of powerful agribusinesses.
Opposition parties will use the Budget Session to target the government on its handling of the Covid-19-ravaged economy and the India-China border staff.
The parties announced full support to farmers, claimed the government played a “nefarious role in orchestrating” the violence that marred protest rallies by farmers on Republic Day and said their main aim in the session would be to have the laws repealed.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who will chair an all-party meeting on Friday, said that the session will offer “ample opportunity” for MPs to raise issues. “This will be a long session with Question Hour and Zero Hour. The lawmakers will get enough opportunities to raise all issues. Disrupting the session will not benefit them,” Birla said.
The session will run from January 29 to April 8 with a recess from February 15 to March 7. The budget is to be presented in Parliament by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, reached out to different political party leaders on behalf of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to bring them together on the farmers’ issues.
CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Aam Aadmi Party have decided to boycott President Ram Nath Kovind’s address to the joint session of Parliament on the opening day of the budget session on Friday in support of the protesting farmers’ demand for repeal of the three farm laws.
Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann said the party MPs will boycott the presidential address and stage a protest in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament to oppose the Centre’s agriculture reform Acts. “President’s speech is written by the government and they will only praise the three laws. In his address to the nation on the eve of Republic Day also, the President had done the same,” he said. Mann is the lone MP of AAP from Punjab.
The Sangrur MP said the AAP had been opposing the three passed by the BJP government from day one from Parliament to the streets. He also accused the Centre of attempting to scuttle the agitation. “Those who indulged in violence in Delhi on Tuesday were not associated with the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha. We condemn the violence, but the Union home minister (Amit Shah) should give an answer how two riots had taken place in the national capital in one year and the police remained a mute spectator,” he said, adding that the party was in favour of peaceful protest.
SAD leaders — Rajya Sabha members Balwinder Bhundar and Naresh Gujral besides ex-Lok Sabha MP Prem Singh Chandumajra in a joint statement said that the central government is unmoved by the suffering of the farmer community. SAD has two members in the Lok Sabha - Sukhbir and Harsimrat Kaur Badal - and Bhundar and Gujral in the upper house.