People's Democracy

  THE WEEK IN PARLIAMENT

Subhas Ray

THE second phase of the ongoing budget session of parliament began on Tuesday, April 19, 2005. Both the Houses witnessed uproarious scenes as the opposition NDA members resorted to disruption on the issue of filing of second affidavit in the Kargil defence purchase case. They trooped into the well of the House and raised slogans demanding the resignation of the defence minister, Pranab Mukherjee. They were also demanding the withdrawal of the second affidavit. Both the Houses had to be adjourned for the day.

The next day, the defence minister clarified in his statement in both Houses that a reading of the two affidavits made it clear that “no clean chit” had been given to anyone in the first affidavit filed by the government on March 10 nor had there been any “U-turn” between the first and the second affidavits. On the same day, the government told the Rajya Sabha that it was examining media reports regarding payment of commission by a South African arms manufacturer, Denel, to obtain classified information on Indian defence deals during the NDA regime. The CPI(M) members along with others demanded a thorough probe into the matter.

The reported attack on the railway minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav during his visit to the Sabarmati Express accident site near Vadodara rocked parliament on Thursday, April 21. There were heated exchanges between treasury and opposition benches. The RJD and Congress members demanded the dismissal of the Narendra Modi government. Another day was lost.

Again when parliament met on the first day of a new week, April 25, it was disrupted by the NDA opposition on the issue of chargesheeting of railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav in the fodder scam case. They staged a walkout even as RJD kept up the demand for dismissal of Narendra Modi government for engineering the attack on the rail minister. The NDA members did not return from the walkout in the subsequent days also as they decided to boycott parliament on the demand for the resignation of charge-sheeted minister. They also made an absurd charge that the government was not giving sufficient “respect” to the opposition in parliament. All this is a reflection of bankruptcy of ideas and leadership in the BJP-led opposition ranks.  They are still unable to digest the people’s verdict against them. 

Lok Sabha took up discussions on various demands for grants for railways, agriculture, rural development, home affairs, science and technology. Of course, the most important was the Finance Bill. As many as 47 demands for grants for various ministries were guillotined and passed without any discussion.

DISCUSSION ON GRANTS FOR RAILWAYS

CPI(M) members, Ramchandra Dome and Khagen Das participated the discussion on the demands for grants for railways in Lok Sabha. Dome criticised the neglect of railway safety, particularly lack of proper maintenance of tracks and bridges. He wanted top priority to be given for this. The new projects for guage conversion must be completed in a time-bound manner. He pointed out how wagon factories in West Bengal are being neglected and demanded that the Chittaranjan Locomotive factory should be protected.  He also dealt with completion, restoration of works on various projects, routes, flyover, removal of water-logging, electrification of various routes and the fulfillment of commitment about giving licences to the railway hawkers.

Khagen Das drew attention to the longstanding demand for improvement of railway network in north eastern region, which has always been neglected.  Even today, six of the seven state capitals are not connected by rail, which hinders development of the region. He wanted the ongoing Kumarghat-Agartala project to be expedited and works relating to Agartala-Subroom project to begin.

Rajya Sabha held discussion on the working of the ministry of water resources.  Participating in the discussion, CPI(M) member, Chandrakala Pandey said lack of proper planning by the government was resulting in a situation where some parts are experiencing severe water shortage while other parts are facing perennial flood problem. She highlighted the woes of farmers due to this situation and demanded government intervention. Stressing the need for water conservation, she wanted government to ensure supply of safe drinking water in rural and urban areas. Expressing serious concern at the move to allow private ownership on our water resources, she asked the government to refrain from it. West Bengal has been facing various problems, like, soil erosion, heavy floods, silting of rivers, arsenic contaminated ground water in some areas. She demanded the government should address these problems immediately.

AGRICULTURE & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

In the discussion on the demands for grants for agriculture, Anil Basu of CPI(M) said that agriculture was badly neglected during the six years of the NDA rule. Coupled with this was the early lifting of quantitative restrictions on agricultural imports which resulted in severe misery for our farmers. Many even committed suicide. In this situation, the CMP of the UPA government mandated that agriculture would be a priority for this government. The finance minister in his budget speech assured providing irrigation facility to one crore hectare land so that a number of jobless persons would get employment and agriculture would receive a boost.  However, no money has been allocated for this. The government must match its words in deeds, he said.

On the demands for grants for ministry of rural development, Nikhilananda Sar demanded more allocation for all-weather roads, to construct sixty lakh additional houses for poor people, to re-excavate one lakh water bodies for irrigation of huge areas of land. Saying that rural development means not just infrastructural development but all round development of people. He asked the centre to learn from West Bengal where million of acres of land has been distributed among the poor, cheap credit is provided and minor irrigation programme is encouraged.

P Satheedevi of CPI(M) said, it is good that the government has realised the importance of rural development and was gradually increasing the annual allocation on economic and social development. She reminded that two-thirds of Indian population lives in villages. The survival of agricultural labour depends primarily on employment. Rural unemployment has resulted in increased migration of people. The UPA government’s proposal regarding the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme if implemented as envisaged would benefit the rural population.  Considering the levels of rural unemployment, she demanded that the scheme must be extended to all the districts in the country.  Sathee Devi also demanded that the government should ensure putting in place a properly functioning PDS and the provision of rationed goods at BPL prices to all agricultural families. Basic infrastructure should be provided for agrarian production. The amounts for schemes like Indira Awas Yojana should be increased. There should be increased allotment for health, sanitation, PMGSY scheme for Kerala.

MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS

In the discussion on the demands for grants for the ministry of home affairs, Bajuban Riyan, Minati Sen and Suresh Kurup participated on behalf of CPI(M) in Lok Sabha.

Bajuban spoke about the issue of border fencing with Bangladesh and the problems sorrounding it in Tripura, Bengal and other states. The government decided that this wire fencing should be done within 150 yards of land falling in Indian territory.  As a result, a good portion of lands of Tripura and West Bengal has been included in the project. The government announced that those who own the lands in that belt would be allowed to cross the fence and cultivate their lands.  During the last cultivating season, the cultivators failed to reap the benefits of harvesting because the crops were looted.  Riyan pointed out that if it went on like this, then people’s claim of owning the lands will remain only on paper. He demanded that the government must discuss the matter with the Bangladesh government so that the fencing can be put up at zero point.  If this was not possible then at least the landowners must be adequately compensated.

Riyan said that insurgency activities were on the rise in different parts of the country, particularly in the north eastern states, West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, particularly of naxalites, National Liberation Front of Tripura etc. To effectively fight this problem, the government must see that the lot of the poor and downtrodden is improved. The scope of employment should be widened. Referring to the huge influx of refugees from neighbouring states and Bangladesh into Tripura, Riyan said the state cannot take this burden anymore due to its limited resources.

Minati Sen in her speech highlighted how efforts are being made by extremist forces like KLO, naxalites, MSMCC etc to create trouble in certain parts of West Bengal. These insurgent groups are active in north Bengal, west Midnapur, Bankura and Purulia. These groups have connections with neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. She said the central government must talk to these countries and see that they come forward to combat terrorism. She said ISI of Pakistan is trying to sabotage the peace process in India and that West Bengal was being affected by Nepal’s Maoist activities. She demanded that adequate BSF forces should be deployed immediately in the region. She also stressed the need for modernisation of police force to fight the menace of insurgency.

Suresh Kurup said the criminal jurisprudence of a country should be in tandem with the ethos of the country and since POTA went against the basic democratic norms, it was opposed. In Kerala, the police unearthed Rs 750 crore hawala scam and till date it is still not clear where the money had gone. He expressed apprehension that this money must have gone to extremist and fundamentalist elements in the country.  Kurup insisted the home ministry must reveal as to where this money has gone, to whom this money has gone and for what purpose this money was utilised.

In a special mention in Lok Sabha, Swadesh Chakraborty of CPI(M) demanded the government to set up a Media Commission to safeguard the interest of employees of electronic and print media.  He said, the freedom of the press is now threatened more by employers and the managers than by the political establishment and muscle power.  The large-scale resort to the contract system by both newspapers and news channels seriously threatened job security of media persons.  In the case of newspapers, this has made a mockery of the Working Journalists (Condition and Service) Act and reduced Wage Board awards.  Almost all the newspapers with some exception are violating the Act with impunity, he charged. The story of the electronic media is no different. He urged upon the government to set up a fully empowered Media Commission to go through the entire gamut of the information and recommend effective action to strengthen the institutional framework.

(May 1, 2005)