New Delhi: In an unexpected turn of events, the Narendra Modi-led NDA government is considering to approach Congress president Sonia Gandhi to help move fresh bills in the Upper House of the parliament in order to replace ordinances that the government had pushed in the last parliamentary session to get rid of the stiff opposition.
In the last winter session of the parliament, government had passed an ordinance to ratify a crucial insurance bill which is due to lapse on April 5 when the 42-day window of passing them in Parliament will end.
For that the government has now sought to introduce in the budget session, a new bill to do away with the ordinance however, it is in a fix as it cannot withdraw the existing bill from the Upper House till the opposition consents to the same as according to the protocol, any introduction or withdrawal of bills can only be done by adopting a motion through votes.
In such a case, it is likely that government might again face stiff opposition as NDA has only 64 MPs in the 243-member Rajya Sabha and the opposition has enough numbers to vote against the government's attempt to withdraw the bill.
As published in a Hindustan Times report, a government source has commented, “The Opposition should act responsibly because they are under people's scrutiny too.”
Support from the Congress would help the NDA cobble up the required numbers in the Upper House to pass the bill.
The Congress chief's cooperation is crucial at this juncture because of the Opposition's aggressive stand on key ordinances such as the ones on insurance, coal block allocation and land law amendments.
It is learnt that the decision to negotiate with Gandhi will be taken at the highest level of the government.
A source told the daily that if the Prime Minister gives the green signal to the plan, one or two senior ministers will try to meet Gandhi.
NDA has already opened the channel of talks through a Rajya Sabha member who is known to be a key aide to Gandhi. Atleast, two meetings have already happened in the last few weeks between the two sides.
Experts are of the view that even if the government fails to get the bill passed this time around, the Centre would atleast be in a position to tell the people that it made all the efforts to push the key bills.
