COOL BREEZE

Is the government listening?
The Budget Session of Parliament has seen some interesting debates, especially from the Opposition side, which has come to the floor of the House energised by the mandate. The Aam Aadmi Party made its presence felt during the budget speech, with Raghav Chadha making a strong case to roll back the decision to do away with indexation of price in real estate. Being a chartered accountant by profession, he came armed with case studies and examples to explain his case and nailed the government’s case that the new regime will actually benefit homeowners. As he explained, if a property was bought in 2001 for Rs 1 crore and is sold in 2024 for Rs 4 crore and 17 lakhs, then its index purchase price would be Rs 3 crore and 60 lakhs. The tax in the old regime would have come to Rs 10 lakhs and 80,000. However, with the new scheme the profit on sale would come to Rs 3 crore and 17 lakhs, making the taxation as high as Rs 39 lakhs and 62 thousand. The difference in the tax burden is almost 30 lakhs for someone who is looking to sell ancestral property. As Raghav Chadha pointed out, this is a budget that has pleased no one, not even the BJP members. But will the government listen and agree to a rollback? So far the Modi government is not one to admit its mistakes unless faced by severe pressures such as the farmers’ protests on its farm bills. Even the controversial demonetisation that cost the BJP its vote bank of small shopkeepers and traders was celebrated as a win and not a disaster.

Don’t miss the message
The Rajya Sabha saw some lighter moments when Aam Admi Party leader Sanjay Singh made a case to increase the budget allocation for jails. As Sanjay Singh pointed out, the government had decreased the allocation for jails to Rs 300 crores. Given the fact that he himself had served a sentence there recently and is out on bail while two of the party’s leaders, Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia are still incarcerated in Tihar Jail, this comment brought a gentle smile to the Rajya Sabha Chairperson and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s face, who called this an “emotional plea” and asked the Treasury Benches to give it serious consideration. Of course the last word was Sanjay Singh’s when he looked to the Treasury Benches and added that “today you have sent me to jail, tomorrow you will have to go to jail. So increase the jail budget and fix the jails!”

Speaker in the Crosshairs
Om Birla, the Lok Sabha Speaker, has been in the opposition’s crosshairs ever since he resumed the post for a second term in Modi 3.0. It was Rahul Gandhi who fired the first salvo when he accused

the Speaker of being partisan and differentiating the way he greeted the Prime Minister vis-à-vis the opposition leaders. Later on, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, while congratulating the Speaker also reminded him that this “mahaan pad” (high office) comes with “mahaan zimmedari” (great responsibility) and asked him to be non-partisan while performing his duties; and added that he hoped the Speaker would run the House and not be run by the Treasury Benches. Later on while speaking on the budget, TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee differed with the Speaker. When asked not to criticise someone who was not a Member of the House, Banerjee retorted that the West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had been named and criticised so often even though she was not a member of the Lok Sabha, and asked that the Speaker reprimand the Treasury Benches for the same.

It is clear that the Opposition, recharged by the recent mandate, has decided not to limit their protest to walkouts but instead state their case inside Parliament and take on the government on the floor of the House itself. This makes for a much healthier democracy instead of disrupting proceedings, or walking out and letting the Treasury Benches pass bills unhindered by the opposition. As for Om Birla, he is a veteran and seems unfazed by the opposition attack, which is probably one of the reasons why he was re-nominated for the post for a second term.