The first full-year budget of the Modi government, which is expected to reflect its reforms-oriented and business-friendly rhetoric, will be presented on February 28, five days after the budget session of Parliament begins on February 23.
The dates were decided on Wednesday by the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs that met under the chairmanship of Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu. But after the official part concluded, Mr. Naidu impressed upon his ministerial colleagues the need to explain the government’s point of view on the ordinances before the session. Especially with President Pranab Mukherjee cautioning the government on the excessive use of the ordinance route and the Opposition accusing it of bypassing Parliament.
Cabinet panel plans strategy to legislate ordinances
The Budget session of Parliament, as is customary, will be held in two parts: the recess will start on March 20 and Parliament will reconvene on April 20. The session will end on May 8. The Railway budget will be presented on February 26 and the Economic Survey the next day. The debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address has been fixed for February 24 and 25.
At the hour-long meeting, attended by the eight other members of the CCPA and officials, not only were the dates fixed but the work needed to convert the six ordinances into law were was discussed threadbare: the government’s priority after the financial business is to clear the ordinances in the first half of the session.
According to sources, after the “official” part of the CCPA meeting ended and the officials left, sources said Mr. Naidu told his ministerial colleagues that over the next few weeks ahead of the session, they must initiate a countrywide publicity campaign on the ordinances. They must emphasise, he said, the government’s point of view — the significance of the ordinances in moving the Modi government’s economic agenda forward — as well as the previous Congress-led UPA government’s comparable history of promulgating ordinances. Finally, they must also explain that the manner in which this government had issued the ordinances was in no way violative of the Constitution.
This, Mr. Naidu said, should be the message that the Ministers — who included Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Najma Heptullah, Smriti Irani, Ram Vilas Paswan, Sadanand Gowda, Ananth Kumar, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Mukthar Abbas Naqvi — must take to the people.
