FM Arun Jaitley seeks ayes for Land, Mining Bills; to use 'maturity' of Upper House in favour

NEW DELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley, facing the unenviable task of piloting controversial ordinances on land acquisition and mining through the Rajya Sabha, has started reaching out to the Opposition, telling ET that he intends to “use the maturity of the House” in his favour. “I’m talking to various party leaders in the run-up to the budget session.

It is a House where members have a high level of maturity, and we have excellent interpersonal relationships and a high degree of cordiality,” he told ET. As leader of the Upper House, Jaitley also condemned online attacks on Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairperson Hamid Ansari, for not saluting the flag during the Republic Day parade.

The vice-president had followed protocol correctly but was targeted nonetheless. “The recent attacks on the vice-president are extremely unfortunate. He is a high constitutional authority and targeting him is not proper,” Jaitley said. He added that this was the view of all members, and also reflected the bipartisanship of the House on a lot of issues.

“Of course it is my intention to use this maturity of the House to convince the members into allowing government business to have a smooth passage,” he said. The key ordinances that have to be converted into legislations include raising the foreign investment limit in insurance sector to 49% from 26%.

Hostile Opposition Likely to Bills

These also include amending the land acquisition law and the coal nationalisation act to enable auction of cancelled coal mines as well as the changing the motor vehicles act to allow e-rickshaw.

The government is expected to face a hostile opposition buoyed by the ruling party’s rout in the recent Delhi assembly polls in a House where the numbers are stacked up against the government. Currently, the Opposition has a combined strength of at least 132 in an effective House of 243 members, including 69 of the Congress.

The Samajwadi Party has 15 members, the Trinamool Congress has 12 as does the Janata Dal (United), while the Left front has 11 and the Nationalist Congress Party has six. Compared with this, the government has a strength of 61, with 42 members from parties such as the AIADMK, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and others that could vote either way.

“It’s a different matter if the parties cannot support a particular legislation due to the exigencies of party politics,” Jaitley said. These 42 members will be crucial in getting bills cleared in the Upper House, and Jaitley, known to have many friends across party lines, is expecting to cash in.