Winter brings with itself, amongst other things, the winter session of parliament. The session, in turn, brings members to their respective Houses in the Parliament. MPs, tired of smooth talking in seminars, social gatherings and tv debates, get a chance to do some hard talks and show their skills of invading the parliament well to obstruct proceedings.
Some leaders work really hard to come up with ideas and ways to save democracy by not letting parliament function. Speakers, too, work hard to bring their Houses in order, sometimes with a fair degree of success. The winter session also presents some of the best clothing and great pashmina shawls.
So, what can we expect this winter session? Government has announced its proposal to introduce The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 which seeks to “create a facilitative framework” for creation of the official digital currency to be issued by RBI. It should be a welcome move especially since there has been lots of speculation on what the government is going to do about trading, investment and use of cryptocurrency in the country. There is further speculation about the bill proposing to ban all private cryptocurrency in the country.
It’s high time the government presented a framework to regulate cryptocurrencies, especially when the Indian economy is recovering from ill effects of the pandemic and it can’t afford to face any possible economic and financial shock due to something happening in Cryptocurrencies. An estimate puts the number of Indian investors/traders in the range of 1.5 to 2 crores with an investment of about 40,000 crores.
Apart from the proposed bill on cryptocurrency, the repealing of farm laws is on the government’s agenda. The Farm Law Repeal Bill is likely to generate some heated exchanges between the government and opposition. The government is likely to introduce the Electricity Amendment 2021 which is tipped to present the most comprehensive and important reforms in Power sector. The Bill proposes to delicense the power distribution business and allow private players to compete with government owned entities. It will provide immense freedom to consumers by allowing them to choose between distributor companies.
Apart from these Bills, the government will certainly try to present its achievement on fighting the pandemic, especially how it vaccinated a large population with more than 100 crores doses. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be certainly preparing to deliver his side of the story on repealing the three farm laws. His supporters will also love to see him deliver one of his best speeches to destroy opposition, something he has done in the past with elan. He has been the government’s best orator in the last several years and he will certainly use this opportunity to talk to the nation, something he enjoys thoroughly.
What can we expect from opposition? Well, one of the opposition parties, BKU, has already proposed to march to the parliament on tractors. Also, as a collective agenda, irrespective of what the Prime Minister says and opposition agrees to in the all party meeting before the start of the session, the 23 days session is likely to witness an opposition, opposing the government on a plethora of issues, ranging from rising inflation to Supreme Court’s order on Pegasus and repealing of farm laws to what happened in Lakhimpur Kheri and how nothing less than the resignation from the Prime Minister and Home Minister can save the democracy.
We may witness Trinamool Congress MPs, coming up with their own agenda, and creating ruckus on the government order which gives more power to BSF and also about how action against their party leaders in Tripura is blatant misuse of governmental powers and murder of democracy. Parties ruling Maharashtra as Maha Vikas Aghadi, will come up with their own opposition to the Ministry of Cooperation and how it is a state subject and how central government has no right to intervene in cooperative movement. However, it may still behave cautiously as their ruckus may open up a pandora box as the government may counter them with facts about their former ministers and police officials. It can’t be ruled out that opposition parties may be busy pooling up the ideas and reasons and finally agreeing to choose some of those to block the proceedings.
As far as individual MPs are concerned, Rahul Gandhi, though fresh from a foreign vacation, should come up with some new gaffes. People would love to see Dr Tharoor pronouncing some till now unheard English words and phrases. Dr Subramaniam Swamy is likely to praise Mamata Banerjee and tell how no present day leaders can be compared with her when it comes to honesty, fighting for saving the democracy and understanding pulse of the nation. We may witness Derek O’ Brien thanking Dr Swamy for the same. Expect some BJP MP to discuss the observation of Allahabad High Court on Uniform Civil Code and Salman Khurshid comparing Hindutva with Boko Haram and ISIS. Many will be expecting Ram das Athavle to recite his new poem.
If allowed to function, parliament will present a good winter session which will commence from November 29 and will likely conclude on December 23.
