As finance minister Pranab Mukherjee talked of co-operation between the UPA and the NDA on clearing Bills related to the reforms process in Parliament on Thursday, he got a sharp retort from the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitely, that ?federalism was a two-way street”. What is behind this is a tale of testy Centre-state relations, stalled Bills and what the BJP terms as a ?vendetta against its chief ministers? derailing important economic reforms.
In fact, co-operation between the two big alliances on economic reforms has been patchy. They have had their moments, it is true, but it is a work in progress. Mukherjee has, sources say, met with the chairman of the standing committee on finance, Yashwant Sinha, specifically on the Insurance Bill. ?We expect the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill (PFRDA) to get cleared soon, but the insurance Bill is a big no-no,? said an Opposition member of the committee.
The chairman of the empowered committee of state finance ministers (ECoFM), Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi elaborates on just what these ?irritants? are between the Centre and the Opposition-ruled states. ?For example, you want co-operation from us, but on Thursday itself the Bihar governor appointed 11 vice-chancellors and pro vice-chancellors in the state without consulting the state government,? he said. Even a month back, 11 Bills had been pending approval before the governor for a significant period of time.
“Therefore co-operation is all very well, but one would want some quid pro quo on issues important to us,? he said. Modi’s main taks as chairman of the ECoFM is to forge a consensus on the Goods and Servcies Tax Bill (GST). States blocking the Bill include the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh. While they have concerns over revenue loss due to GST, another irritant happens to be the Special Courts Bill, which aims at setting up fast-track courts to deal with corruption cases. It has been pending with the home ministry since April 11 this year.
“This is an important legislation dealing with corruption,? says G V L Narasimha Rao, a state government representative in Delhi. Similarly, the Punjab government, also an NDA one, has several Bills stuck at the approval stage.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had quite famously referred to former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah’s release as one of the quid pro quos which had been demanded of the Centre for clearing the GST.
So incensed had the BJP been at what had been termed as discrimination against Opposition ruled states, that at its party’s national executive in Lucknow in June, a resolution on federalism had been adopted.
Politically, therefore, several things have to be addressed, before the four Bills listed by Mukherjee, namely the PFRDA, the Insurance Bill, the banking regulation Bill and the GST Bill are even close to being cleared.