Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Thursday that Home Minister and Leader of the Lok Sabha Sushilkumar Shinde, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath and Food Minister K V Thomas would meet the Opposition leaders to elicit their support for passage of the Food Security Bill.
“Based on the response of the Opposition, we will have to take a view. Our intention is to get Food Bill passed in a special Parliament session and we are making another effort to ask the Opposition parties to support us. If they agree for passage of the Bill in Parliament, a special session could be called at the earliest,” Chidambaram said.
Though the government introduced the Food Security Bill in Parliament, the UPA coordination committee recently met and discussed various options before the government.
After the meeting, Kamal Nath said all options were open before the government.
However, on June 4, the government wanted to take the ordinance route and accordingly, Law Minister Kapil Sibal signed the draft ordinance on food security. The issue of promulgation of the ordinance was on agenda of Thursday’s Cabinet meet.