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At the weekly Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday, party MP from UP's Ballia Bharat Singh said the leadership should be prepared for the consequences, as government schemes were not being implemented on the ground, and ministers were not responding adequately to the complaints of MPs.
Singh said ministers were "casual" in their approach and that BJP might suffer in the UP Assembly elections because of non-implementation of schemes. The PM was present at the meeting.
At the meeting, the party asked the MPs to ensure hundred per cent attendance in Parliament, as there was voting on Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill. The party had even issued a whip. But the PM gave the Lok Sabha a miss. However, government sources said the PM was very much present in his chambers at the Parliament House attending urgent matters.
Senior ministers on Wednesday suggested that the Lok Sabha's Budget session could be extended to conclude unfinished legislative agenda, including the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement Bill and a couple of other minor Bills related to amendments in the Negotiable Instruments Act, relaxing investment limits to micro, small and medium enterprises, or MSMEs and a Bill that seeks to reduce the workload of the Delhi High Court. The Lok Sabha is slated to end its Budget session on Friday.
In its effort to reach out to the Congress on GST, the government has put the contentious land acquisition Bill on the backburner. It also gave in to the Congress-led opposition's demand to refer the real estate Bill to a Rajya Sabha select committee. The 21-member committee, headed by BJP's Anil Madhav Dave, will give its report by the last day of the first week of the monsoon session of Parliament. The Bill on undisclosed foreign income and assets (imposition of tax), or black money Bill in popular parlance, has also fallen off the government agenda for the current session of Parliament.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the Rajya Sabha will take up the appropriation Bill on Thursday, and thereafter the GST Bill. Sources were also confident that the Congress would come around to supporting the GST Bill in the Rajya Sabha.
The Lok Sabha will take up the Land Boundary Agreement Bill on Thursday. Naidu said it was historic that the Rajya Sabha passed the land boundary Bill with all 181 MPs present in the House voting for the Bill. The Rajya Sabha also passed the Delhi High Court (Amendment) Bill to reduce the workload of the court.
