To bring in ordinance, UPA winds up session

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Sonia Gandhi this morning. The Cabinet is also supposed to meet tomorrow and it’s likely to decide the ordinance issue though there’s no word on when they intend to bring it in.

In the House, Opposition MPs stalled proceedings and waved copies of The Indian Express to slam the Government over its “double standards”. BJP members could be heard chanting “Yeh to bus bahana hai, Sonia ko bachana hai (It’s all an excuse to save Sonia)”.

Protesting the sine die adjournment of both Houses, the NDA, led by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, marched to Rashtrapati Bhavan and urged President A P J Abdul Kalam not to prorogue Parliament. Leader of Opposition L K Advani said the move was “a singularly unfortunate event in the history of Parliament”.

For the Government, the sine die adjournment of Parliament was necessary to bring in the ordinance since Article 123 of the Constitution empowers the President to promulgate an ordinance on the advice of the Council of Ministers only when Parliament is not in session.

The “traditional recess” of the Budget session would have been an impediment to the promulgation of the ordinance. “During recess” of Parliament, the President may promulgate an ordinance only in an emergency situation. With both Houses adjourned sine die, Parliament would “technically” not be in session and an ordinance can be promulgated.

The UPA hurry stems from the fact that there are at least 44 complaints against prominent MPs with the President. These include Sonia Gandhi (chairperson of National Advisory Council and several Govt-aided trusts), Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee (chairman, West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation), Karan Singh (chairman, Indian Council for Cultural Relations), Union Minister T Subbirami Reddy (chairman, Tirupati trust).

In fact, Somnath Chatterjee stayed away from presiding over Lok Sabha today on the ground that he had been named as one of the persons holding an office of profit. “Since my name has been involved by some members, it will not be appropriate for me to sit on the chair,” he told reporters.

The Government move was made formal when Lok Sabha re-assembled at 4.30 pm. Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal said he had received a request from the Government and urged leaders of political parties to meet in the Speaker’s chamber. Following this announcement, he adjourned the house for ten minutes.

Atwal returned and said the Government had requested the Speaker that since there was no government business for the remaining part of the budget session, the House should be adjourned sine die. Outside the House, the Congress struggled to dissociate the ordinance from a specific connection with Sonia Gandhi. Party members said there would be another ordinance too: for witness protection in the wake of the Jessica Lall case. This, the party hinted, could precede the ordinance on offices of profit. Clearly, a move to explain the ordinances as responses to “urgent concerns”. SP’s Amar Singh, against whom a disqualification petition is pending, and TDP’s Yerran Naidu, who complained against Congress leaders, met Kalam and claimed that the President had forwarded petitions seeking disqualification of Sonia Gandhi, Karan Singh and Subbirami Reddy to the Election Commission.

But official sources clarified that all such petitions to the President are routinely sent by his office to the Election Commission and the President sees them only when the EC makes a recommendation or seeks his opinion.