 "Cong leads Oppn to stall Parliament proceedings")
Parties such as the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal (United), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) joined forces with the Congress to take on the government in both Houses of Parliament.
Opposition members trooped into the well of the Lok Sabha to protest the NDA government's failure to bring back black money stashed abroad. TMC MPs, wielding black umbrellas with "where is black money?" slogan written on them, briefly blocked the main entrance of Parliament in the morning. "One hundred days are over, where is black money," asked opposition MPs. But Speaker Sumitra Mahajan remained unfazed.
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Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and leader of Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said the government was willing to have a discussion but the Opposition demanded suspension of the Question Hour for a discussion on the subject.
The Opposition strategy is likely to be a stumbling block for the government's efforts to push its reform agenda, particularly in the Rajya Sabha, where it is way short of the majority mark. In the Rajya Sabha, the government failed to get a resolution passed to fill vacancies of the House select committee that is currently studying the insurance Bill. The government did manage to extend the committee's tenure until December 12.
Committee member Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s P Rajeeve said the extension was made without observing the "technicality" of consulting the members of the committee. Other committee members Trinamool's Derek O'Brien and Congress' J D Seelam also said they were unaware of the government's move. The committee was earlier to give its report by Friday. Committee Chairman Chandan Mitra and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley pointed out rules to defend the government's position. Jaitley even asked if the opposition parties wanted the committee or were keen to dissolve it, in which case the Bill could be introduced in the House the next day itself. The committee term was extended by voice vote.
This is the first Rajya Sabha session with the Question Hour shifted from 11 am to 12 pm but that didn't help the House transact any business in the morning, as the Congress MPs continued their protest and the chair had to adjourn the House until lunch.
In the Lok Sabha, the Opposition staged a walkout post-lunch when the chair decided to take up for discussion the Delhi Special Police Establishment (Amendment) Bill to amend rules for appointing the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Ranjit Sinha, the current director, retires on December 2.
The Lok Pal Act, passed in the previous Lok Sabha, entails that a PM-headed three-member panel selects the CBI director. Other two members being the chief justice of India or a Supreme Court judge nominated by him and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The amendment seeks to change leader of Opposition to leader of the second largest party, which would enable the leader of the Congress to be a member of the panel.
A second amendment aims at allowing the three-member panel to reach a decision even if one of the three is unavailable. Opposition MPs, such as Biju Janata Dal's Tathagata Satapathy, opposed the second amendment. Satapathy also said CBI was being used to carry out "political vendetta", and that people in West Bengal as well as Odisha were apprehensive of the investigating agency's neutrality. Satapathy termed CBI to be a "suspect organisation" with "suspect motives". The House will take up the issue for further discussion and vote on Wednesday.
The Lok Sabha also discussed a Bill to bring four Indian Institutes of Information Technology - at Allahabad, Jabalpur, Kanchipuram and Gwalior - under a single authority, give them statutory status and allow students to receive degrees. The Bill was introduced in the previous Lok Sabha but had lapsed.
In the morning, the BJP held a meeting of its parliamentary party. Jaitley told BJP MPs that the government was trying to get the Goods and Services Tax Bill enacted by the next session. He said there were apprehensions by states on the issue and the government will try clear these.