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| Parliament's budget session begins today | | Opposition parties ready to attack UPA Govt | | BL KAK
NEW DELHI, FEB 22
Two Houses of Parliament will witness stormy scenes during the "crucial" budget session commencing Friday, Feb. 23. Opposition parties are on the offensive. They are sharpening their knives as they prepare to attack the Congress-led coalition government at the Centre.
The upcoming attack will be on everything from internal security and the price rise to the train blasts and foreign policy decisions. The UPA government is expecting a hectic business-like session with the central budget and the railway budget being presented during the two-month session. The Opposition and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Left allies have vowed to corner the government on its economic and foreign policies.
Results of Assembly elections in Manipur, Uttarakhand and Punjab, out on Feb 27, could also be embarrassing for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government with poll surveys indicating that it could lose Punjab and Uttarakhand. Warned Vijapy Kumar Malhotra, BJP's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha: "Although a major part of the session would be spent on discussions over the budget and 'thanks motion' to the President's address, it will definitely be a stormy session".
The session begins with President APJ Abdul Kalam addressing a joint session of both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, during which he would lay out the policies of the government. While the railway budget would be presented Feb 26, the Economic Survey would be out the next day and the union budget on Feb 28.
Malhotra said: "We will corner the government on price rise and internal security in the wake of the blast in the India-Pakistan friendship train". He added that the Left Front, which supports the UPA from outside, also wanted to take on the government on the same issues. Malhotra stated: "Even if the Left does not agree for floor coordination with us, we are also raising the same issues. The government will be thoroughly embarrassed".
Left parties are also preparing to put both Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar under the scanner for the record inflation, which touched a two-year high at 6.73 percent last week. CPI-M leader, Roopchand Pal, said: "There are issues we want to raise, such as farmers' suicides, the delay in bringing the law on the unorganised sector, the UPA government's unilateral move to sell off the shares in state-owned companies and foreign policy etc,".He added: "We shall be questioning the government over the issues in which it has violated the mutual agreement in the common minimum programme".
However, both the BJP and the Left parties said that skyrocketing prices would dominate the discussions. Other allies like Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal and Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party also admitted that prices of essential commodities have been a major concern. Congress leaders said they were prepared to counter the attacks by listing the measures taken to contain inflation.
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