Centre likely to surprise with key bills in Parliament in Dec first week

The top brass of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has directed all its MPs from both the Houses of Parliament - Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha to stay in Delhi and attend all the sessions in the first week of December, said sources.

The sources added that the fresh direction has come amidst speculation that the central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is likely to introduce a much-discussed Uniform Civil Code bill, also referred as the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Parliament in the first week of December.

The BJP leadership had stunned the floor of the Parliament by a similar surprise on August 5 by revoking Article 370 of the Constitution giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Top leadership in the BJP has alerted to all MPs to cancel/postpone all public meetings and appointments of their constituency from December 1 and remain in New Delhi amid Winter Session of the Parliament, sources said.

Generally, MPs used to attend the Parliament session from Monday to Friday and leave Delhi to attend public meetings in their respective constituencies during weekends (Saturday and Sunday).

Earlier, BJP had organized two days workshop on August 3 and 4 to keep engaged its MPs in Delhi to ensure their attendance in the Parliament. On the next day, which was August 5 (Monday), Union Home Minister Amit Shah had announced to revoke the special status granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir.

It may be noted that Shah on Wednesday had said that the central government will do amendments in Civil Code so that non-Muslim refugees coming to India after being exploited from neighbouring countries can get Indian Citizenship.

The Union Government is all set to bring Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Winter Session. But the more surprising buzz doing rounds is that the Centre is planning to formulate and draft Uniform Civil Code bill so that they could directly introduce it in the Parliament.

The number game of the BJP and its alliance partners in NDA in the Rajya Sabha is weak, yet the central government had succeeded to arrange majority numbers with the favours of some opposition party for Triple Talaq bill and revocation of Article 370 and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories.

Despite the separation of Shiv Sena from NDA and a weak majority in Rajya Sabha,Union Government looks confident this year in the Winter Session and is likely to pass many important bills as similar to last year.