Opposition forces amendment to Motion of Thanks in Rajya Sabha

The amendment was against making school education mandatory for contesting panchayat elections

A united Opposition embarrassed the government on Wednesday when for a second successive year, it successfully voted in the Rajya Sabha to amend the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address. The vote came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to the Opposition to help the government pass key Bills and also withdraw its amendments to the Motion.

The President’s address, delivered on the first day of the Budget session every year, is approved by the Union Cabinet and details the government’s achievements of the past year as well as policies and programmes for the year ahead. Wednesday’s was only the fifth instance in the last 60 years of a government having been so snubbed. For, the Opposition customarily moves hundreds of amendments to the Motion of Thanks, which by convention are withdrawn after the discussion.

However, in a strategy identical to last year’s, opposition members of Parliament (MPs) on Wednesday withdrew around 300 amendments barring one. The amendment aimed to criticise the move by Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states of Haryana and Rajasthan to make school education of up to eighth/10th class mandatory for those contesting panchayat elections. The government lost the vote 94 to 61. The Opposition was united, barring the 10 MPs of the Bahujan Samaj Party who were absent from the House.

Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, who had moved the amendment, argued that educational qualifications for panchayat elections would weaken the foundations of democracy and the same would be discriminatory to the poor, especially those belonging to the lower castes, and women. Communist Party of India (Marxist) chief Sitaram Yechury said there could be a day when some state government could pass a law that Muslims could not contest panchayat elections.

That the Opposition succeeded in pushing the amendment highlighted the government’s lack of numbers in the Rajya Sabha, which has also impeded its efforts to get key Bills such as the goods and services tax (Constitution amendment) Bill passed in the Upper House. In 2015, a united Opposition had won an amendment that regretted that the President’s address did not mention the government’s “failure” to curb high-level corruption and to bring back black money.

Earlier, the PM said he found it strange that the Congress party, just like ‘death’, never gets a bad name in the media. Taking a potshot at the Congress for objecting to educational qualifications for panchayat elections in Haryana and Rajasthan, the PM asked the Opposition party to give party tickets to “illiterates” in the forthcoming elections to five states.

Modi yet again quoted from the speeches of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi to appeal to the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha to work in tandem with the Lok Sabha and cooperate with the government in passing key Bills. He said India needed a quantum jump, not merely incremental progress. The PM spoke about the change his government has brought in expediting delayed projects, making auctions of resources more transparent and decentralised decision-making in giving environmental clearances to projects.

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016. According to sources, the Rajya Sabha will take up the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill on Thursday.