)
While BJP's prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi today expressed strong reservations against the proposed Prevention of Communal Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2013, calling it ill-conceived and a recipe for disaster, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured that his government will try to evolve a broadbased consensus on issues which are of 'great' legislative importance.
In a letter to Singh today, Modi has described the bill as an attempt to encroach upon the authorities of the state governments and sought wider consultation among the various stakeholders such as the state governments, political parties, police and security agencies, before any further movement on the issue.
He further questioned the haste to introduce the bill in the parliament, alleging that such an attempt before the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 was suspicious and was driven by votebank politics rather than genuine concern for preventing communal violence.
"As a Chief Minister of a government that is sensitive to the issue of communal violence and a state that has been riot free for over a decade now, I agree that there is a need to be vigilant on communal violence but the contents and timing of the bill are suspicious," Modi wrote in his letter to Singh. He described the bill as ill-conceived, poorly drafted and a recipe for disaster.
Modi, in the letter, has pointed out that there were various operational issues in the proposed Prevention of Communal Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2013. He detailed the shortcomings in number of sections of the proposed bill.
The Gujarat chief minister expressed concern over the proposed legislation fearing that it would further divide Indian society on religious and linguistic lines. "Religious and linguistic identities would become more reinforced and even ordinary incidents of violence would be given a communal colour thus giving the opposite result of what the Bill intends to achieve," he said in the letter.
He wrote that this was an attempt by Central government to legislate on issues of 'law and order' and 'public order' that are a part of List II (State List) of the Seventh Schedule. He maintained that this is an issue under the State List and that if it is something that would have to be implemented by the State government then it should be legislated by the State government.
Modi, however welcomed setting up of a Communal Violence Reparation Fund but objected to term compensation calling as arguable. Government should leave the issues of compensation to the competent courts and should instead provide ex-gratia relief or assistance to as immediate relief to the victims, he opined.
Responding to Modi's charges on communal violence bill Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said government will try to evolve a broadbased consensus on issues which are of 'great' legislative importance. He also said Central government seeks the cooperation of all segments of Parliament to ensure smooth passage of the legislations. "It will be our effort to evolve a broadbased consensus on all the matters which are of great legislative importance," Singh told reporters outside Parliament House when he was asked to comment on the BJP's prime ministerial candidate's opposition to the communal violence bill.
