As the UPA government plans a special session of Parliament to pass the Food Security Bill, the Bharatiya Janata Party said on Sunday that it was not opposed to it, even while preferring that the monsoon session be brought forward.
“There are media reports that the government is considering… an ordinance or… a special session of Parliament. The ordinance route for such an important legislation is not desirable. We are not opposed to a special session of Parliament,” Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj tweeted.
However, “the better option will be to prepone the monsoon session which is anyway due in July,” she said.
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The BJP’s support came on the eve of the UPA’s coordination committee meeting scheduled for Monday to discuss the issue. The government is also planning to convene an all-party meeting, for it could not get the bill through in the budget session because of disruptions by the Opposition.
To clear the hurdles, the Congress Core Committee decided on Saturday that Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath start consultations with major parties to convene a special session. If his efforts failed, the meeting felt, the government should go in for an ordinance pending Parliament’s ratification of the bill, which seeks to give two-thirds of the population a legal right to cheap food.