Author: Easwaran Nambudiri
Publication: Organiser
Date: May 28, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=132&page=3
In one of the most blatant and shameless acts
of expediency in free India's political history, the Congress-led UPA bulldozed
through Parliament a Bill purely and solely aimed at saving the coalition
by exempting from the purview of the Office of Profit several posts held by
MPs of the Left parties, on whose support it depends for survival.
One of the primary objectives of the Parliament
(Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill 2006 introduced in Parliament
earlier this week and subsequently passed amid strong opposition from the
NDA was to exempt the post of the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council,
which was held by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and was compelled to quit
in the wake of the disqualification of Samajwadi Party member Jaya Bachchan
and subsequent petition by Opposition leaders against her.
Even as she projected the image of 'Mother
of all sacrifices' while surreptitiously grooming son Rahul for the top post,
Congressmen were keen to have her back as Super Prime Minister over and above
Dr Manmohan Singh, who has brought down the stature of the office of the Prime
Minister to an unprecedented low.
The Bill provided a special clause for exempting
the NAC Chairperson and among the 55 posts exempted, included over a dozen
in Tripura and West Bengal where Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and
several other CPI(M) MPs could have attracted disqualification for violating
the law on Office of Profit.
The posts in the Left-ruled West Bengal which
were exempted included the Sriniketan Shantiniketan Development Authority
headed by Shri Somnath Chatterjee.
Others are:-
The Tripura Khadi and Village Industries Board,
Indian Statistical Institute, The West Bengal Handicrafts Development Corporation
Ltd, West Bengal Small Industries Development Corporation Ltd, The West Bengal
Industries Development Corporation Ltd., The Haldia Development Authority,
The West Bengal Minorities Development and Finance Corporation, The Hooghly
River Bridge Commissioners, The Board of Wakf, West Bengal, The Howrah Improvement
Trust, The West Bengal Fisheries Development Corporation Ltd, The West Bengal
State Haj Committee.
The Asansol Durgapur Development Authority,
The West Bengal Pharmaceutical and Phytoche-mical Development Corporation
Ltd. The West Bengal Powerloom and Handloom Development Corporation Ltd, The
West Bengal Khadi and Village Industry Board and The Society for Self-Employment
for Urban Youth….
It almost read like a telephone Directory
of the state's government undertakings and the list of beneficiaries read
like the who's who of Left MPs and leaders.
Shri Somnath Chatterjee, Mohd Salim, Hannan
Mollah, Nilotpal Basu, Tarit Baran Topdar, Amitava Nandi, Sudhanshu Sil, Banasgopal
Chowdhury and Sujan Chakraborty.
It's not that Law Minister H R Bhardwaj, who
piloted the Bill, showered the largesse only on Sonia Gandhi and the Left
MPs.
Among the posts exempted were also the heads
of Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (held by Kapila Vatsyayan, who has
since resigned from the Rajya Sabha), the Indian Council for Cultural Relations
(held by Congress leader Karan Singh) and the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams
Board headed by another Congress MP T Subba Rami Reddy.
Keen to ensure that the UPA's other allies
too back the Bill in the wake of the NDA offensive, the Bill included several
posts in the Samajwadi Party ruled Uttar Pradesh including the UP Development
Council, headed by party General Secretary Amar Singh, who has been spitting
fire at the Government ever since Bachchan was disqualified.
In a significant reminder of the Gandhi family's
vengeance against the Bachchans, which led to Jaya's disqualification in the
first place, the list did not include the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Council
she headed and for which she had to pay a heavy price.
Also exempted were the posts of heads of Dalit
Sena, an affiliate of the Lok Janshakti Party of Union Minister Ram Vilas
Paswan and the Mayawati-led Lucknow-based Bahujan Foundation.
As if to put the Opposition BJP in the dock,
the Bill also exempted the post of the Chairman of the All India Council for
Sports, once headed by BJP Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha Prof Vijay Kumar Malhotra.
Not only that the Government did not know
that the Council does not exist anymore and the Election Commission has given
a clean chit to Malhotra by dismissing the petition against him, the idea
was only to show to the public that nobody was above board and the BJP was
adopting double standards.
The Bill also exempted the Office of Chairperson
or Trustee of any Trust, whether public or private. It does not require much
imagination to conclude that the clause clearly had in mind the Rajiv Gandhi
Foundation, headed by Smt. Sonia Gandhi.
With a view to benefit many of the party MPs
and MLAs heading several college bodies and NGOs, the legislation also excluded
from the purview of the Office of Profit offices of the Chairman, President,
Vice-President or Principal Secretary or Secretary of the Governing Body of
any society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
"The UPA is abusing its numbers to bring
forward a legislation which is only aimed at saving faces behind the offices
sought to be exempted", said senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley opposing
the Bill in the Rajya Sabha. "It is a price for the support. From today,
the definition of UPA's CMP (Common Minimum Programme) has been changed to
Common Minimum Profit", he said amidst cries of shame from the Opposition
benches.
The Government had also turned down the BJP's
suggestion that the new legislation should not be with retrospective effect.
The feeling of guilt deep in her heart, Smt.
Sonia Gandhi was not present in the Lok Sabha when the Bill was taken up for
voting. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee also did not preside over the
House on grounds of "propriety".
In the Lok Sabha, the BJP and its allies trooped
out of the House after the Bill was introduced with Leader of Opposition Shri
L K Advani charging the Government with "bulldozing" the measure.
Opposing the inclusion of the NAC Chairperson's
post, he said Gandhi as NAC head had become a "Super Prime Minister'
and if the post had to be exempted, the Government should have have come out
with a Constitutional amendment.
The Bill killed the very spirit of Article
102 of the Constitution, pertaining to Office of Profit, said Smt. Sushma
Swaraj.
But what better can the people of India expect
from a Government which in its brief tenure of two years has shown scant regard
for constitutional institutions including the President, the Election Commission,
the Supreme Court of India, Governors and the Parliament itself? Trinamool
Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi rightly pointed out that the passage of the
Bill was a dark day in the history of Indian democracy.
