New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) A day after the budget session concluded with passage of some vital bills, the Congress on Thursday slammed the Narendra Modi government for pursuing “anti-farmer, anti-poor and anti-middle class policies as well as legislation”.
Hitting out at the government, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said: “The last parliament session will go down in parliamentary history as evidence of the government’s prolific pursuit of anti-poor, anti-farmer and anti-middle class policies.”
“This government is anti-farmer, anti-labour and even anti-children,” Azad, who is the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, told the media here.
The Congress also accused the BJP-led government of “unnecessarily taking credit for the introduction and passing of several bills” that, the party said, were originally conceived and set in motion by the Congress-led UPA.
Party leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said that the government had “flouted, circumvented and subjugated” parliamentary procedures and traditions during the last session, as “almost 90 percent of the bills they have not sent to the Standing Committee to escape parliamentary scrutiny”.
“It was also a matter of concern that the BJP government had failed to take all political parties on board. Why was it that neither the prime minister nor the parliamentary affairs minister cared to adhere to time honoured tradition of consultation with all opposition parties on legislative and policy agenda,” he said.
The Congress also hit out at the government for “unilaterally changing the definition of money bill by clubbing amendments like Forward Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1952; Security Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956; Foreign Exchange Management Act and Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 1002 with the Finance Bill”.
Azad also charged the government with making a “deliberate and malafide attempt” to undermine the authority of Rajya Sabha.
“They change normal bills to money bills, just to escape the scrutiny of the Rajya Sabha,” he said.
“Rajya Sabha was… undermined by the prime minister and the BJP government by passing of legislation that were not money bills by including them as part of money bills. Similar was the case of black money bill which was introduced as part of Finance Bill,” Azad added.