Buoyed by the Opposition’s success in presenting a united front against the Modi government in the Rajya Sabha in the Winter Session of Parliament, the parties of the Janata Parivar plan to complete the formalities for merger ahead of the Budget Session slated for end-February, party sources told The Hindu .
Simultaneously, these parties — the Samajwadi Party, the Janata Dal-United, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Janata Dal(S), the Indian National Lok Dal and the Samajwadi Janata Party – will work on not just keeping the links built with other parties on the floor of the Rajya Sabha alive, but in consolidating those ties.
Last month saw the Janata Parivar making common cause with the Left parties, the Trinamool Congress, the DMK and even the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.
The Modi government using the closing days of 2014 to push through a slew of ordinances — that include the ones to increase the FDI cap in the insurance sector from 26 per cent to 49 per cent, to permit allotment of coal blocks to private companies and make it easier to acquire land even without the full consent of the owners – has provided more grist to their mills.
JD(U) sources pointed out that if the Congress was on the same page as the BJP on the Insurance Law, it was extremely upset at the government’s attempt to dilute the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act using the ordinance route. The Opposition parties are therefore going to focus on the Act in the coming weeks building up to the budget session.
Indeed, the day the Cabinet cleared the amendments to the Act, Opposition parties, described the move as “anti-farmer,” “unjust” and “deeply disturbing.”
And it was the Congress, the largest Opposition party, that reached out to other parties asking all pro-farmer outfits to come together to oppose the amendments, with general secretary Digvijay Singh declaring, “Congress would oppose every move to dilute the Land Acquisition Act.”
Simultaneously, Trinamool leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her party would fight the ordinance tooth and nail. Indeed, the land acquisition ordinance will be clubbed along with other “anti-farmer” actions of this government, Opposition sources said.
“Subversion of Parliament”The Opposition is upset not merely at the amendments, but the fact that the government has taken the ordinance route. Senior JD(U) leader K.C. Tyagi said: “We criticised the UPA government because it passed so many ordinances, but the Modi government in just seven months has demonstrated far greater speed: this is a subversion of Parliament.”
Even BJP ally PMK founder S. Ramadoss slammed the “back door entry” by the NDA government, saying the changes will affect crores of farmers in the country.
Meanwhile, for the JD(U) and the RJD, the urgency to create one party is driving the merger: with Assembly elections in Bihar due at the end of the year, the members of these two parties are keen to get their act together as quickly as possible, especially as the BJP has already begun work on the State.
JD(U) sources said that SP supremo Mulayam Singh would be free by January 8, when annual festivities in his native Saifai will end: at the last meeting of the Janata Parivar, Mr. Singh was authorised to start the process of merger.
