The Hindu : National : Adjournment aimed at `saving' Sonia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 23, 2006

National

National

Adjournment aimed at `saving' Sonia

Neena Vyas

Opposition alleges bid to introduce ordinance

PETITIONING KALAM: NDA leaders A.B. Vajpayee, L.K. Advani talk to the media after a delegation submitted a memorandum to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in New Delhi on Wednesday. — Photo: PTI

NEW DELHI: The political row on the issue of "office of profit" boiled over on Wednesday when it became known that the two Houses of Parliament were to be adjourned sine die at the end of the day's sitting.

The issue has been simmering since Samajwadi Party member Jaya Bachchan was disqualified and lost her seat in the Rajya Sabha for holding the position of chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Council, which the Election Commission deemed to be an "office of profit".

The Opposition said the move to adjourn the Houses sine die was to enable the Government to bring in an ordinance designed to "save" Congress president Sonia Gandhi from attracting disqualification for holding the office of chairperson of the National Advisory Council. But Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi and the Congress asserted that this was a canard spread by the Opposition and that the NAC was "not an office of profit".

Dasmunsi's defence

"Let me make it absolutely clear that Sonia Gandhi is not holding any office of profit," Mr. Dasmunsi said while defending the "prerogative" of the Government to declare the budget session over since the complete financial business related to budget passing and adoption of the Finance Bill had been completed.

Taking head-on the Opposition criticism that the sine die adjournment was "extraordinary and unprecedented," Mr. Dasmunsi said the National Democratic Alliance Government had adjourned Parliament sine die on December 21, 2003 but had not prorogued it to get over the parliamentary norm of the President addressing a joint session of Parliament in the new year. In 1994 the P.V. Narasimha Rao Government prorogued the House on May 13, 1994, issued ordinances and then reconvened the House on June 19, 1994.

Mr. Dasmunsi said leaders from several parties had approached him and others in the Government to suggest that there should be legislation to amend the law related to office of profit.

"Arun Jaitley and Prakash Javadekar [both BJP] have said publicly that the law on office of profit should be changed. There are others, whom I do not wish to name, who told me that some MPs have complained to the President about Congress leaders holding an office of profit because they were asked to do so by their party leader," Mr. Dasmunsi said.

Memorandum presented

Soon after Parliament was adjourned sine die, NDA leaders led by the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Janata Dal (United) leader George Fernandes met President Abdul Kalam with a memorandum suggesting that if the Government were to issue an ordinance on the subject of office of profit he should refuse to sign it. What is law for Ms. Bachchan should also be the law for Ms. Gandhi, they said. The memorandum also pointed out that recently the Governor of Uttar Pradesh had refused assent to a Bill exempting certain positions from the purview of offices of profit legislation with retrospective effect. What cannot be done in Uttar Pradesh should not be allowed at the Centre, the NDA said.

With the Trinamool Congress complaining that Speaker Somnath Chatterjee was holding a position on the Shantiniketan Development Council, Mr. Chatterjee kept away from the House on grounds of "propriety".

SP, TDP meet Kalam

Special Correspondent reports:

Leaders of the Samajwadi Party and the Telugu Desam Party met Mr. Kalam and drew his attention to the abrupt adjournment of the budget session. Urging him to intervene, they said the move was an effort by the Government to promulgate an ordinance to determine "office of profit".

SP general secretary Amar Singh and TDP Parliamentary Party leader K. Yerran Naidu met the President after the NDA delegation called on him.

Mr. Naidu said Mr. Kalam had told them that he had already forwarded the complaints he had received against those holding "office of profit" to the Election Commission.

Earlier Mr. Amar Singh told the media that the sudden sine die adjournment of Parliament was an attempt to "bring through the backdoor" the ordinance to amend the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959, to save Ms. Sonia Gandhi from being disqualified for being chairperson of the National Advisory Council while also functioning as a Lok Sabha member. "This is immoral," he said. Mr. Singh said he did not mind being disqualified from the House. "But then Sonia Gandhi, Karan Singh and so many others should also go."

Mr. Singh said he and Ms. Bachchan were being selectively targeted by the Congress.

The decision on Ms. Bachchan came on the last day of the nomination for Rajya Sabha biennial elections to prevent her from filing for re-nomination."

"I do not believe that a Congress worker would file a case against a personality like Jaya Bachchan unless signalled to do so by the Congress high command," he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail