Insurance bill goes to select committee

Bowing to opposition pressure, the government Thursday sent the controversial insurance bill to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha.

A motion was adopted by the upper house Thursday, after main opposition party Congress refused to support the bill.

The committee's members will be Chandan Mitra, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Jagat Prakash Nadda (BJP), Anand Sharma, B.K. Hariprasad and J.D. Seelam (Congress), Satish Chandra Misra (BSP), K.C. Tyagi (JD-U), Derek O'Brien (TMC), V. Maitreyan (AIADMK), Naresh Gujral (Akali Dal), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Kalpataru Das (BJD), P. Rajeev (CPI-M) and Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Independent) as its members.

The committee will submit its report on the last day of the first week of the next session.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said he was sorry the bill could not be passed in the upper house.

"Congress, which is the original author of the bill, and some other parties had different ideas about the bill. Since government does not enjoy a majority in the upper house, we could not pass the bill," he said.

"We are sorry for that," he said.