Parliament diary

New initiative by Prime minister to reach out to his party’s MPs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has undertaken a new initiative to reach out to his party’s members of Parliament. Members of the BJP parliamentary party have been divided into six groups and six senior Cabinet ministers have been given charge of those groups. The ministers are Union home minister Rajnath Singh, finance minister Arun Jatley, defence minister Manohar Parikkar, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, information minister Venkaiah Naidu and HRD minister Prakash Javadekar. These ministers host dinner parties for their respective groups of MPs during the ongoing Monsoon Session where the MPs get a chance to air the problems they face in their constituencies to the PM, BJP president Amit Shah and party organisational secretary Ramlal.

Varanasi village pradhans on four-day visit to see parliament proceedings For the last four days, before the Parliament session begins in the morning, a bus full of village panchayat pradhans have been reaching the main gate of the Parliament House Complex. They are all from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, Varanasi. According to them, they were invited by Mr Modi to see the proceedings of the Lok Sabha and to have a chance to meet their MP. However, all of them, mostly women, have faced difficulty in getting security clearance for entry into the Parliament House complex. After getting security clearance, they go inside the Lok Sabha and watch the proceedings. Generally, passes are given for watching the session for one hour. So by the time all these sarpanchs enter the visitors gallery, much of their scheduled time is over. They would then be told to exit the gallery. Some of them expressed their dissatisfaction over not having enough of an opportunity to watch the proceedings.

Congress to move private member’s resolution over money bill Congress and Left MPs of the Rajya Sabha are planning to introduce a private member’s resolution on Friday, the last day of the Monsoon Session, to put the government on the backfoot on the question of money bill. During the GST Bill debate, both the Congress and Left parties were trying to get an assurance from finance minister Arun Jatley that the government will not resort to the option of making the bill on the GST rate a money bill. The Rajya Sabha has no right to veto a money bill. At the end of the debate, the finance minister did not give any categorical assurance on the question of money bill. On Friday, Congress leader Kapil Sibal and CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury will meet for a discussion on declaring a bill a money bill as a private member’s resolution. The writer is a senior journalist covering Parliament for 25 years.