M A I N   N E W S

It will be lunch speech by PM
Delayed summit salvo from Parliament
T.V. Lakshminarayan
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 22
With the Pakistan President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, stealing the strobe lights on the deadlocked Agra summit, Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee’s media managers plan to make good the lost opportunity during the monsoon session of Parliament beginning tomorrow.

Arrangements are being made to ensure that the Prime Minister makes an elaborate statement on the recent Agra summit in both Houses of Parliament, which not only addresses the concerns of the members but also responds to several statements that the Pakistani General made in his infamous breakfast meeting with Indian editors in Agra and a highly publicised media conference in Islamabad.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Pramod Mahajan said he was trying to get the statement telecast live on all the channels in the country.

Parliament proceedings are available live upto a radius of 10 km from the complex and various channels would have in any case telecast the statement in around 10 minutes after the delivery. “We hope to provide feed to all channels so that they can telecast the Prime Minister’s speech live”, he said.

“Instead of having a deferred breakfast speech, we will serve a live lunch speech”, Mr Mahajan said in an apparent reference to the telecast of Mr Musharraf’s meet with editors in Agra.

Making light of the Opposition’s notice that they will pin down the government on the Agra summit, Mr Mahajan said the ruling side was prepared for any kind of debate on any subject.

Indicating that the government will aggressively defend its position on a host of contentious issues like fiscal mismanagement, disinvestment of PSUs, the US-64 fiasco, and the unresolved Tehelka imbroglio, Mr Mahajan said “we won’t refuse debate on any subject”.

With most of the time in the Budget session being lost to adjournments and walkouts, the government was hoping that the monsoon session will make progress on clearing some of the pending legislative business.

To make up for the curtailed Budget session, the forthcoming session has been extended by around more than a week to last 40 days. There are no holidays, except for Independence Day, and there will be sufficient business hours in all the weeks till August 31, when the session concludes.

There are 11 Bills pending in the Lok Sabha and 10 in the Rajya Sabha. The government plans to introduce 16 new Bills which have to be introduced and passed while another 12 Bills will be simply introduced.

Major legislations that will come up during the session include the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Bill, 2000, the Central Vigilance Commission Bill, 2000, the Women’s Reservation Bill (Constitution 85th Amendment Bill, 1999), the Energy Conservation Bill, the Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill, 2000, the Delhi Rent (Amendment) Bill, 1997, the Lok Pal Bill, 2001, the Communication Convergence Bill, 2001, the Competition Bill, 2001 and the Delhi Apartment Ownership Bill, 2001.

Much heat is expected to be generated when the Opposition clashes with the government over the recall of the Tamil Nadu Governor Fathima Beevi and the Manipur crisis.

The mood of the Opposition could be gauged by the statement of Congress leader Madhav Rao Scindia, who said “the Government’s cup of woes is full to the brim and overflowing.”

Parliament will also take up during the session discussion and voting supplementary demands for grants (general) for 2001-02 and demands for excess grants (general) for 1998-99.

Discussion and voting on supplementary demands for grants (Railways) has also been listed.