NEW DELHI: With just four days of parliament session left, the government has trimmed its legislative business to just seven more bills, including the changes in electoral rolls to allow Aadhaar seeding and fixing qualifying cut-off date for changes to first of the month every quarter, beginning January.
Only three fresh bills have to be introduced which includes the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, which appears an admission on the part of the government that getting parliament to discuss bills will be a tall order with Opposition disruptions continuing.
While the government had set out with 29 legislative bills, the Lok Sabha could give its nod to only six as business got washed out last week after the Opposition stepped up the heat on the BJP led dispensation over the SIT findings on the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.
The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, will come up in the remaining days of the ongoing session. It proposes to amend the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and 1951 to achieve four objectives: synchronizing the electoral roll with Aadhaar to avoid duplication, bringing in cut-off dates with the first of the month beginning January, every three months for the changes in the electoral roll, replacing the term “wife” in the existing law to “spouse” for gender neutrality, and enabling the requisition of premises for the purposes of holding polls.
The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, seeks to further increase the minimum age for girls for marriage to 21. The Mediation Bill, 2021, will be the third bill to be introduced in the Lok Sabha. The Lok Sabha will, however, seek to take on priority the demand for grants, which among others provides for the immediate financial requirement of Air India before the privatization process is concluded.
But parliament resuming normal business next week will be incumbent upon the discussions between NDA leaders and the leaders of the Opposition in both the houses of parliament. With the opposition turning up the heat on the Lakhimpur Kheri SIT report and demanding the resignation of the MoS for home affairs Ajay Mishra Teni, the likelihood of the opposition, particularly the Congress,to scale down its aggression appears remote with the elections in five states, including UP, very close now.