The Hindu : National : Bihar, Jharkhand crises overshadow budget

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Tuesday, Mar 01, 2005

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National

Bihar, Jharkhand crises overshadow budget

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 28. Election — that great leveller in a democracy — cast its shadow on the presentation of the budget by the Union Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, today. Bihar and Jharkhand seemed uppermost in the minds of the key players on India's political firmament right through the two-hour-long budget unveiling exercise though the leading lights of both States — Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and Shibu Soren — did not put in an appearance.

Party leaders appeared keen to get on with the business of cobbling together a government in the two States. So much so that the Opposition — which had made considerable noise over the weekend about the breach of Parliament's privilege by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, for responding to a letter from the National Advisory Council chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, on the budget — did not press the point once the Speaker said the matter was under his consideration.

Little protest

With the representation of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the usual Opposition-baiters, confined to a couple of Ministers, there was little protest from the ruling benches when the National Democratic Alliance convener, George Fernandes, sought to move the privilege motion. The issue wrapped up in five minutes, Mr. Chidambaram began his speech on a sombre note — a reminder of the tsunami that devastated large tracts of peninsular India.

Over the next 110 minutes in which he occupied the spotlight, Mr. Chidambaram ran into rough weather only once; that, too, towards the end when he proposed to levy a 0.1 per cent tax on cash withdrawals of Rs. 10,000 a day from banks. Clutching on to the opportunity that came its way, the Opposition was quick to protest but could not sustain it beyond a few minutes as there was no one to join issue with — probably because most in the ruling benches also silently disapproved of the proposal.

Earlier, unable to find any reason to protest, Bharatiya Janata Party members could be seen goading the Communist Party of India member, Gurudas Dasgupta, to object when the Finance Minister made out a case for more foreign direct investment. But, in vain.

And, barring his parting effort at punctuating his speech with verse — borrowed like last year from the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar — Mr. Chidambaram did not indulge in the kind of asides that perked up his last budget.

The rare exception was when he announced some tax exemptions for women and senior citizens with the hope that "I will be twice blessed" by them, a statement that immediately brought smiles on the faces of his mother, wife and family members watching him from the Speaker's gallery.

Though the visitor's gallery was not packed to capacity — attendance was much below expectation with few takers for the extra chairs put out — the Rajya Sabha members gallery was a full house.

In fact, it began filling up even before the House met with Jairam Ramesh, Anil Ambani, Amar Singh, B.J. Panda, Sanjay Nirupam and M.S. Gill among the early arrivals.

As he signed off with the Thiruvalluvar quotation amid protests about the tax on cash withdrawals, members hurriedly filed out to offer bytes to television channels while senior leaders of the two major political combines returned to the other big story of the day — government formation in Bihar and Jharkhand — and visitors to the business of figuring out how the budget would impact their lives.

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