In one of the most blatant and shameless acts of expediency in free India'spolitical 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.
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'sgovernment undertakings and the list of beneficiaries read like the who'swho 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'snot 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'sother 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'svengeance against the Bachchans, which led to Jaya'sdisqualification 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.
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'sCMP (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'ssuggestion 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'spost, 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.
