BJP sweats over fate of ordinances in RS: Will PM Modi pay for insulting opposition?

While most Members of Parliament will be enjoying an extended four-day weekend - Thursday to Sunday - on account of Holi festivities, some of their colleagues in the ruling BJP benches are toiling hard to find suitable ways to deal with the turbulence that might erupt on Monday.

The government is taking some hope from the fact that the Lok Sabha ratified two ordinances -  Insurance Laws (Amendments) and Coal Mines (special provisions) -  with broad support, albeit with some changes from the Congress and NCP and passed them as bills to be now taken up by Rajya Sabha. The motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill have been passed as well.

But the good news ends there.

Before the Raya Sabha takes up the contentious Insurance bill for consideration and passage, it has to first withdraw the bill on the same subject that is pending there.

The fact that a united opposition pulled through a passage of amendments in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s motion of thanks to the President’s address and thus succeeding in deeply embarrassing the government, is indicative of the helplessness of the treasury benches in crunch situations.

There is every sign that this opposition unity will extend to its stand on the Insurance Bill. If not on the substance, then at least on the modalities of its placement on the table of the House. In fact, Congress and other opposition leaders kept highlighting this while the bill was being debated in the Lok Sabha.

The government had earlier sought the deferment of withdrawal of these bills from the Rajya Sabha.

But what if the Opposition, which is in the majority in that House, does not allow these bills to be withdrawn for the introduction of the same bills that were passed in the Lok Sabha?

That’s a question no leader in the treasury benches is willing to dwell on, at least for now. If that happens then the fate of these bills could indefinitely hang in the balance.

Meanwhile, the controversial land acquisition ordinance is to be placed in the Lok Sabha on Monday for ratification. This is likely to run into a great deal of turbulence, given that  major reservations against it have been aired not just by the opposition, but also some NDA allies like the Shiv Sena and Akali Dal.

The government is getting ready to deal with the situation as it emerges in the Lok Sabha and will try to convince members to accept some broad changes that were outlined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi while replying to the motion of thanks to the President’s address.

But a considerable amount of midnight oil is being burnt on ideas and issues to deal with the situation in Rajya Sabha.

There is an argument that since an ordinance has been promulgated on raising the FDI limit in Insurance, it is already law of the land, and therefore the bill pending is Rajya Sabha has become infructuous. Senior BJP leaders are working hard to find substantive arguments and precedents to that effect.

Minister of state for Finance, Jayant Sinha has yet again reiterated the possibility of a joint session of the two Houses to be convened for the passage of the Insurance and Land Acquisition bills. But for that to happen, if at all, the bills will have to be passed by one house and rejected by the other.

There is also a sense of unease among BJP members on two counts. The first is a growing perception, right or wrong, that the amendments in the land acquisition bill are anti-farmer. Second, that the party strategists have failed to adequately handle floor management.

After all, what happened in Rajya Sabha the other day when the opposition forced an amendment in the motion of thanks to the President’s address after PM Modi’s reply was “not an unpredictable cloudburst situation”.One could “see the weather becoming rough” for a few days, an MP said. It was therefore incumbent on the floor managers to walk the extra mile to seek the support of some of the opposition parties.

To make matter worse, around 10 members from the BJP ranks were missing when the voting took place in Rajya Sabha.

There is another opinion, critical of Modi’s rather aggressive mode of pitching into the opposition and taking on almost all of the parties and leaders in opposition ranks.

It would have probably been more prudent if he had been a bit soft, at least for short term gains. The government badly needs the support of the very party leaders that he ridiculed, at least in the Upper House.

They are of the opinion that it is time for Modi to make the distinction between a hard hitting political speech in a public rally and a nuanced speech on the floor of the Parliament.

Inside the Parliament, he as Prime Minister and leader of the House in Lok Sabha, he also has to be considerate of certain factors that he can ignore while speaking on a public platform. But then, as a party leader said, who has the courage or conviction to say that to Modi?