New Delhi:
With elections round the corner, the Congress wants to take no more chances with its ambitious Food Security Bill, and is set to push for an ordinance to give it life. The Union Cabinet is expected to clear this today, setting up another massive showdown with the BJP, which is opposed to pushing through the landmark legislation without discussion in Parliament.
In the ruling Congress, whiplashed by scandals and scams in recent months, the bill is seen as a bailout before the 2014 elections; the party hopes it will be a major vote-getter. And for good reason. Championed by party president Sonia Gandhi, it promises rice at Rs 3 a kg and wheat at Rs 2 a kg, less than 10 per cent of current retail prices, to about 810 million people.
The Left and UPA's external ally the Samajwadi Party are opposed to the Bill. The Left wants it to be made law only after key changes that it has suggested are made. Mulayam Singh Yadav's SP says it is anti-farmer and reflects the government's keenness to clear a populist reform so that it can call mid-term elections.
Parties like the Trinamool Congress too have dismissed the proposal as "an election gimmick" and the BJP has asked why the Congress is in a frenzy to bring it before the polls when "people have been starving for four years."
An ordinance is the Congress' emergency plan. It has also suggested a special sitting of Parliament to pass the Bill. The ordinance, which will have the same features as the bill tabled by the government in the Budget session, will have to be approved within six weeks of Parliament's return.
The BJP has said that it is open to a special session of Parliament to debate the government's proposal but, said senior leader Sushma Swaraj, it prefers convening the Monsoon Session of Parliament, due in July, early.
The government, however, worries that the BJP, which disrupted the last session of Parliament with daily attacks on the government for alleged corruption, will block the Monsoon Session as well.
The government has already budgeted 900 billion or Rs. 90,000 crore for the scheme in the current fiscal year ending March 2014. If the bill is passed, it will need to come up with a whopping 1.3 trillion or Rs. 1.3 lakh crore in 2014, adding to a total subsidy burden that already eats up about 2.4 per cent of gross domestic product.