With The Indian Express report on the UPA government arming itself with an ordinance to exempt certain posts from offices of profit rocking both Houses today, the Government moved swiftly to get Parliament adjourned sine die, saying “there was no government business for the remaining part of the Budget session”.

The “traditional recess” of the session done away, the decks are now clear for the Government to bring in the ordinance which, as The Indian Express reported today, will change the law on offices of profit and ensure that prominent MPs, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, escape a Jaya Bachchan-type disqualification.

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.

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