Parliament diary

Kalam’s memorial raises a storm

July 27 is the first death anniversary of late President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. And it has became an issue to target the Union government in Parliament.

After Kalam’s death, the Union government had decided to build a memorial in his memory at Rameshwaram of Tamil Nadu, where he was buried. But nothing has been done yet.

On the direction of Trinamul Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, party Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien raised the issue during Zero Hour on Monday when Union defence minister Manohar Parrikar was present.

The issue became heated as DMK members came to their feet and accused the present ruling AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu. After Zero Hour the defence minister told the TMC MP that the memorial could not be built because there had been some problem with the land accusation. He politely told Mr O’Brien that like the TMC, the Union government was not in favour of acquiring land forcibly.

Later sources in the defence ministry informed the TMC MP that a near relative of the Late President had been reluctant to part with the land because land prices had gone up substantially and they wanted appropriate compensation for the land to be used for the proposed memorial. Ultimately the Tamil Nadu government resolved the issue with the relative and the government is now ready to announce the memorial.

The TMC, however, wonders how many times building of the same memorial will be announced.

Is Venkaiah naidu still parliamentary affairs minister

In the recent Cabinet reshuffle Venkaiah Naidu was divested from the portfolio of parliamentary affairs and given additional charge of the information and broadcasting ministry along with his earlier responsibility of the urban development ministry.

But last week he was seen travelling extensively from his home state Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu for inaugurating various developmental projects, like the extension of the Chennai Metro Rail project.

BJP sources say that after the last BJP parliamentary party meeting, the Prime Minister has given Mr Naidu the charge of wooing South Indian regional parties for ensuring support for the pending GST Bill.

Mr Venkaiah Naidu is thus trying hard to bring Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa on board.

This week the empowered committee of the state finance ministers is meeting in the capital. And though Ms Jayalalithaa, who is also the TN finance minister, won’t be attending, it will be made clear in the meeting whether Tamil Nadu is on board or not. If the state does agree to the GST Bill, Mr Naidu’s stock will substantially increase.

Perhaps new parliamentary affairs minister Anant Kumar is keenly watching the progress.

Differences within Congress creating hurdles for Afforestation Bill

Union environment minister Anil Madhav Dave is finding it difficult passing the “Compensatory Fund for the Afforestation Bill 2016”. After due consultation, he had brought former Union minister of the UPA government Jairam Ramesh on board. Mr Ramesh had objections to the bill because panchayats were not given due representations in the bill.

But though the environment minister found a solution for this, new problems for the safe passage of the bill has cropped up. While Mr Ramesh thinks he is the authority on matters of rural development and panchayati raj, there are other leaders in the Congress who think otherwise. One of them being two-time chief minister and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, who is not ready to support the bill.

Mr Singh is of the opinion that MPs and MLAs should be consulted for utilising any compensation funds on afforestation. The environment minister has now taken the matter to the finance minister. If the bill is passed in both Houses of Parliament then a huge corpus of `40,000 crore will be created for the compensation.

In the matter of distribution of funds, the Congress general secretary wants MPs to have a role. But the Union government is arguing that MPs and the state legislatures are already enjoying the benefits of the MPLAD scheme and there is no reason for them to be brought into the matter of deciding compensations.

The writer is a senior journalist covering Parliament for 25 years