Govt Fails To Introduce Bills On New States

The government suffered a setback in the Lok Sabha yesterday when it could not introduce the long-promised bills on the creation of Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand as pandemonium broke out in the House when Union home minister L K Advani's attempted to introduce the bills at half-an-hour's notice.

Agitated members of the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Bahujan Samaj Party and even some Congress members from Punjab were seen agitatedly moving in the well of the House when Speaker G M C Balayogi asked the home minister to introduce the Bill at 4 pm. The minister was seen saying, "I introduce the Bill." But by then, there was so much pandemonium in the House that the Speaker left in a huff. The general impression among MPs at that time was that Advani had been able to introduce the Uttaranchal Bill.

Later, it was discovered that the Speaker had adjourned the House till 5.30 pm, and an all-party meeting was in progress at his chamber. When the House reassembled, Advani was not present. The Speaker announced that due to disorder in the House, the three bills could not be introduced. The agenda had been deferred for the next session.

As a result, the BJP will not be able to claim in the UP hills that it had, at least, introduced the Bill. The issue was more important politically for the BJP than for some of their allies. Perhaps, it was for this reason, that some members of the alliance parties were expressing happiness over the government's failure. The government had not listened to them on their demand for rolling back prices of essential commodities, and therefore, they felt happy that the government had not been able to score a political point by introducing the bills.

BJP MP Bhuwan Chand Khanduri's pleas that the session be extended till Friday was not taken seriously as the Speaker moved over to passing the Port Trust Bill.

Most members were agitated over the way the government had tried to push through the bills without taking the House into confidence. Though it was a common knowledge in Parliament's corridors throughout yesterday that the government was determined to introduce the states' reorganisation bills at the fag end of yesterday's sitting, the government refused to share the information formally with members in the House till 3.30 pm.

Several members of the Opposition demanded a clear information whether the government was planning to have a supplementary agenda. RJD's Raghuvansh Prasad Yadav who was in the chair at that time said there was no such information with him. The noise level in the house was so high that the House was adjourned at 3.30 pm to meet again at 4 pm. Copies of the bills were then distributed to members during the recess thereby giving them half-an-hour notice.