New Delhi:
The Union Cabinet rejected the ordinance route for anti-corruption bills pushed by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi while clearing reservation for the Jat community and approving changes to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill in a special meeting today.
Though the Cabinet did not formally take up the anti-corruption ordinances, sources said Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Law Minister Kapil Sibal raised the issue and said the bills require more deliberations in Parliament. Yesterday, the two ministers had called on President Pranab Mukherjee who has been reluctant to sign the legislations days before the announcement of Lok Sabha elections, due by May.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Union minister Manish Tewari said, "There was a discussion around the issue but since these are very important pieces of legislation and need fullest deliberations in the legislature, in the finest tradition of democracy, we decided to debate in Parliament. But it does not take away our commitment to fight corruption."
The anti-graft bills were being seen as Congress's last-ditch efforts to reclaim the anti-corruption plank, seen to be appropriated by Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party and Narendra Modi's BJP in the run-up to national elections due by May.
The Cabinet decision on Jats gives the community reservation in central government jobs and educational institutions, a demand that came from nine states - Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Bihar.
The decision regarding the division of Andhra Pradesh gives special status to Seemandhra - the region that will form the residuary state once Telangana is carved out as India's 29th state.
A massive political backlash is now expected since a government, which has entered its last lap, conventionally leaves the fate of pending bills to be decided by the next government.
"To promulgate ordinances to suit the ruling party's interests after Parliament has been adjourned on the eve of election announcement, will amount to a blatantly anti-democratic and partisan exercise," CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said today in a letter to the President.