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Passing of Finance Bill advanced

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, AUG. 24. All the financial business before the Budget session of Parliament, including the Finance Bill, is expected to be passed without any discussion this week, maybe as early as tomorrow or the day after. There will be no discussion or debate on the demands for grants of any Ministry — all these will be guillotined. And if the Opposition continues to stall proceedings, the Budget session could come to a premature end by this Friday.

The Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, has already issued a three-line whip to his party men and indicated that the Finance Minister would be moving many amendments to the Bill, introduced in the first part of the Budget session.

The decision to advance the passing of the Finance Bill — last week the Business Advisory Committee of the Lok Sabha had decided that a debate on the Bill would begin on August 27 and it would be passed the following week — was taken after the leaders of the National Democratic Alliance formally conveyed today to Mr. Azad that the Opposition wanted the Finance Bill passed without a discussion.

'Most unfortunate'

"It is most unfortunate that the Bill would have to be passed without a discussion. Normally it is the Opposition that should be keen to debate important economic issues. But today the NDA came to me with a proposal for passing the Finance Bill without a discussion and we [the Government] have accepted it,'' Mr. Azad told reporters. He added that "it would have been good if there could be a discussion.''

After a meeting of all the NDA MPs this morning and another meeting of NDA leaders this afternoon, it was decided that the deputy leaders of the BJP in the two Houses, V.K. Malhotra and Sushma Swaraj, should meet Mr. Azad to discuss the passing of the Finance Bill.

Mr. Azad later confirmed that a meeting had taken place between him, the Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, and others where the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders told him that they would not like the Finance Bill to be passed amid din and noise, as was done in the case of the Railway Budget yesterday. They proposed passing the Finance Bill peacefully without a discussion.

'Not transacted business'

Mr. Azad said that the House had not transacted any business the last few days as the Opposition had stalled proceedings daily on the Savarkar plaque issue and the non-bailable warrant against the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharti. He made it clear that in both these cases the Government had nothing to do with it. The decision to not include the Savarkar plaque in the martyrs' memorial at the cellular jail in the Andamans was taken by an independent foundation headed by the Minister for Petroleum — as was the earlier decision during the Vajpayee Government to have the Savarkar plaque — and not by the Cabinet, he said. As for the arrest warrant, a Hubli court issued it.

"They [in the NDA] want to stall proceedings and they also wanted that the Finance Bill be passed peacefully so that it does not look bad [`bura bhi na lage'],'' Mr. Azad said and added that the NDA had also conveyed to him that they cannot let the House run. "We do not want to waste time and public money by having three adjournments daily without transacting business.''

Mr. Azad also indicated that the Speaker and the House would take a final decision on the re-scheduling of the financial business.

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