Back to business: Govt lines up key Bills as Budget Session begins today

The impact of American President Donald Trump’s policies on trade and immigration and the related matter of the “overall economic slowdown” will be part of the Opposition’s quiver in Parliament’s Budget Session, which starts on Friday.   

The government has listed 16 Bills that it would try to pass during the session. They include three new Bills for introduction. One of those is the Immigration and Foreigners Bill, which seeks to make laws stringent for identifying and

deporting foreigners staying illegally in the country.  

Also, India’s preparedness on artificial intelligence (AI) and how it perceives the emergence of China in the field with the sudden emergence of DeepSeek will figure in what the Opposition highlights.

 

Although a state subject, demands for discussion on the deaths in a stampede on Wednesday during the Maha Kumbh in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj are also set to be raised. At the all-party meeting on Friday, which Defence Minister Rajnath Singh chaired, the Opposition accused the government of politicising parliamentary committees and trying to push its agenda by using its majority. 

 

They also said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government had politicised the Kumbh congregation and criticised the “VIP culture at the cost of the common man”.

 

The session will begin with President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabling the Economic Survey 2024-25.

 

On the eve of the Budget Session, the Congress released its “Real State of the Economy” report. It argued that the government’s policies were pushing the country into a “middle income trap”, which will make it uncompetitive, underproductive, and unequal. Former finance minister P Chidambaram flagged the issue of “economic slowdown”.

 

Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Saturday for the eighth consecutive time (including the Interim Budget last year). It comes in a more favourable political context than her July 2024 Budget, with the BJP having won the crucial Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana later in the year. This year has only two Assembly polls, the fewest for any year in the current five-year tenure of the government.

 

But the government is set to face questions not just from the Opposition but also from BJP MPs, especially on the tax burden on the middle classes. The list of questions listed on the Lok Sabha website, to be answered by the finance minister on Monday, include one from BJP MPs Kangna Ranaut and Suresh Kumar Kashyap on “the distribution of tax exemptions and benefits between corporations and individual taxpayers during the last five years”. The two BJP MPs have also sought the finance minister’s response on the “specific policies and measures that the government has implemented to ensure that the middle-class is benefitted more from tax exemptions and the details of estimated impact of these on middle-class taxpayers”. 

 

Another set of questions posed by the BJP’s Bhartruhari Mahtab and Balabhadra Majhi, both from Odisha, have sought to know from the government “whether there has been an overall increase in tax collections and foreign investment inflows after reduction in corporate tax rates”. Mahtab and Majhi have sought industry-wise details of tax benefits extended and their impact on economic growth, and the specific incentives being considered by the government to attract more international corporations like Apple, Google, and Tesla to establish manufacturing units in the country.

 

The session will run from January 31 to February 13 before breaking for recess to examine the Budget proposals. The session will reconvene on March 10 and continue till April 4.

 

At the all-party meeting, the Janata Dal (United), a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, sought an extension in the tenure of the committee scrutinising the Bills proposing simultaneous elections, while another partner, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), demanded a “special industrial package” for Bihar. The Janata Dal (United) wants Parliament to also discuss India’s position on AI and how it can meet the Chinese challenge.

 

Union minister Kiren Rijiju said the Business Advisory Committee would decide the agenda of the session, including the demand for a discussion on the Maha Kumbh.

 

The Congress on Thursday alleged the BJP was seeking to control Parliament’s standing committees by having 26 of its MPs as members of two panels, contrary to the “One MP, One Standing Committee” rule traditionally followed. It also criticised the functioning of the joint committee to scrutinise the Waqf Bill.