The NDA government is confident that it will be able to muster the numbers to get the contentious Insurance Bill — that will raise the FDI cap in this sector — through in this session, despite being in a minority in the Rajya Sabha.
The Select Committee got an extension on Tuesday to submit its report on December 12, even though this came after a brief disagreement in the Rajya Sabha when the Opposition questioned committee chairman Chandan Mitra’s method in securing the extension. This now gives the government time to bring the Bill to Parliament. The winter session ends on December 23.
Not just that, it now looks as though the BJP will be able to get majority support within the Select Committee to get its version of the Bill through.
Of the 15 members of the committee, three from the BJP, one independent, and one each from the Shiromani Akali Dal, the Biju Janata Dal, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the AIADMK, sources said, would back the government. Of the remaining seven, one each from the Trinamool Congress, the CPI (M), the Janata Dal-United and the Samajwadi Party will oppose it. The three Congress MPs are undecided and their assent or otherwise, they say, will depend on whether their amendments are accepted.
Indeed, the Congress, it is clear, is in a bind: as the original sponsor of the Bill, it wants to claim ownership; on the other hand, it does not wish to make things too easy for the BJP that had not cooperated with it when the Bill came during UPA rule.
Meanwhile, the NDA government also indicated that the Goods and Services Tax Bill — that was not on the original Parliamentary Affairs Ministry shortlist — will also be introduced in this session, and the intervening period till the budget session will be used to sort out outstanding issues with the State governments. It hopes to pass the GST Bill in the budget session.
Indeed, at the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting on Tuesday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government would try to introduce the GST Bill in this session and pass it in the budget session. Acknowledging that some States had apprehensions on the subject, he said it would be the Centre’s endeavour to clear them.
