'Let Parliament function', says India Inc in online petition, Congress cries foul

Parliament has remained deadlocked since the beginning of the Monsoon Session last month

Around 15,000 people, including the country's top industrialists, have signed an online petition asking Members of Parliament to 'Let Parliament Function'.

Industry leaders like Adi Godrej, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Rahul Bajaj, Sunil Munjal, Anu Aga, Ajay Sriram, Sumit Mazumder and Kris Gopalakrishnan are reportedly among those who have signed the petition.

The online petition has raised questions on the manner in which both Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha has functioned this parliament session. "Important laws like the Constitution amendments in Goods and Services Tax which improves India's growth rate is held up. GST has taken a long time in coming and has taken years of consensus building,", says the petition

The India Inc petition came after the Parliament has failed to clear a single economic bill in the current Monsoon session with the Opposition seeking resignations of foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj and two Chief ministers over various scandals.

Stung by this support to the government, Congress leader Manish Tewari has questioned Corporate India's intentions. where the corporate sector's concern was when BJP wiped out session after session for 10 years during the previous UPA government's rule.

"Comical where was corporate India's concern & concierge when BJP wiped out session after session for 10 years? Rockefeller moment souring," Tewari said on twitter.

"& ROPI (Return on Political Investment) floundering now they want Parliament to bow to their ditkats. Will it be parliament of corporates?" he added.

And it is not just the congress who have attacked the CEOs for signing the petition. Sharad Yadav of JDU said the petition proves that the BJP government is run by capitalists which voted the Modi government to power. 

In fact, the logjam in the Parliament, status quo on key reforms like goods and service tax (GST) and Land Bill and no rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India is making Corporate India jittery about the investment climate which is reminiscent to the last three years of Manmohan Singh’s government.

The Parliament logjam has already put a question mark on key legislations like the Goods & Service Tax (GST), the Electricity Amendment Bill, Commercial court and commercial appellate and commercial division of High Courts and Commercial Courts Bill and the Land Bill which are pending for approval in the House affecting policies and investment decisions. The government has already backed down from making any changes in the Land Bill of 2013 which makes land acquisition difficult for new projects.

“The GST (goods and service tax) model has evolved as a consensus through detailed discussions of the Committee of State Finance Ministers over several years. The relevant bill for its introduction must be passed in this Parliamentary session if this vital tax reform is to be introduced by April 1, 2016,” warns Adi Godrej, Chairman of Godrej group. 

“The GST would add as much as 2 percentage points to the economic growth, which will help generate millions of new jobs. But for this the Parliament must transact business,” said Godrej thus capturing the mood of an increasingly impatient Corporate India.