The government is relying on the Left, Samajwadi Party, BSP and others to checkmate the BJP-led NDA’s move to stall the Budget Session of Parliament on the issues of JPC probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
The session will begin on February 21 and the General Budget will be presented to Lok Sabha on February 28.
Though the Left parties are pressing for a JPC into the spectrum scam, they are reluctant to go with the BJP on the floor to wash out the Budget Session. Besides their floor coordination with the BJP could send out wrong message to minorities ahead of the Assembly elections in West Bengal and Kerala.
The Left’s initiatives in consolidating non-Congress and non-BJP have proved non starter as barring the Biju Janata Dal and the Telugu Desam Party, rest of the parties are divided in the Congress and the BJP led Fronts.
While the SP, BSP and RJD are already backing the Manmohan Singh government, the JD(S) has moved closer to the Congress because of developments in Karnataka. The government is in no mood to succumb to the Opposition’s pressure tactics on JPC. In fact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday rather reiterated his government’s stand on “debate first” on the 2G scam.
He said, “Parliament is a primary forum for discussion, dialogue, legislation and I don’t think anybody would deny that things are not what they ought to be.” If the government sticks to this line then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s meeting with the Opposition leaders here on February 8 could unlikely to be fruitful.
The Railway Budget and the Economic Survey will be presented to the Lower House on February 25.
The recess between the two parts of the session will be used by departmentally-related standing committees of various ministries to scrutinise the budgetary demands for grants.
Normally, the budget session goes on upto the first week of May but this year the session has been curtailed in view of Assembly elections due in early May in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.