Setback for govt as insurance Bill referred to select committee of RS

Move exposes BJP's lack of numbers and poor floor management

The insurance Bill was on Thursday referred to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha, betraying the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s poor floor management to overcome its lack of numbers in the Upper House. The Bill aims to increase the private equity from 26 to 49 per cent in the insurance sector.

The Bill, let alone being passed, couldn’t even come for voting in the Rajya Sabha, which indicated the problems the NDA is likely to face with many of its proposed legislations, including labour law reforms, in the Upper House.

The government can convene a joint session to get the Bill passed but only after it is voted upon and defeated in the Rajya Sabha. The government had to concede to the opposition’s demand to refer it to a select committee since a majority of the MPs in the House favoured that.

The situation is likely to repeat itself several times with key reformist Bills in the next couple of years. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA cannot hope for a change in its woeful minority in the Rajya Sabha until the next biennial elections to the House. The previous such elections took place earlier this year and the next are slated for early 2016. Nearly one-third of the Rajya Sabha’s 245 members are elected in biennial elections.

Currently, the BJP enjoys a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha but has only 42 members in the Rajya Sabha. The NDA has 57 MPs. The Congress has 69 MPs. The NDA doesn’t add up to a majority even with support from 10 nominated and nine independent MPs. The current strength of the House is 242 MPs, with three vacancies, and the halfway mark being 122.

In the current session, the BJP couldn’t even convince potential ally All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (11 members) to support the insurance Bill, although it helped one of its MPs, M Thambidurai, elected as Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

Neither could the BJP replicate from the previous UPA government’s floor management tactics. The combine, when faced with a tricky situation, would request MPs from Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party to abstain from voting or walk out to reduce the effective strength in either of the two Houses.

The UPA constituent Nationalist Congress Party with its six members, as also non-NDA Biju Janata Dal (seven members) had committed their support to the Bill but this was too little.

The House adopted a motion to refer the Bill to the select committee after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a 15-member panel had been formed. The select committee has been asked to look into the Bill and give its report on the last day of the first week of the next session.

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

The Congress had argued the NDA had brought about many amendments to the Bill from what the UPA had tabled in the House, and, therefore, it required a closer look. The government had initially listed the Bill in the Rajya Sabha but later removed it from the agenda. It instead opted to consult and convince all the parties.

At an all party meeting, the Bharatiya Janata Party had not only said the changes were minor but also offered to accommodate any changes the Congress-led opposition might want incorporated. But the logjam couldn’t be resolved with the BJP leaders even claiming the Congress only wanted to delay passage of the Bill so that Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot make his visit to the United States with a reformist law. The Congress, however, is upset that the National Democratic Alliance has been not willing to grant one of its members the status of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

The BJP had opposed the insurance Bill when UPA had tabled it in the Rajya Sabha. The Select Committee would inspect the Bill clause by clause and adopt the changes, if any, by a majority. Those members who do not agree are allowed to append their dissent to the final report.

Incidentally, in the Lok Sabha on Thursday several opposition members demanded that the Apprentices Amendment Bill, 2014 be referred to a standing committee. The House passed the Bill, given the NDA’s majority in the House but could face problems in the Upper House when it is tabled there in the Winter Session.