Given there are enough issues for disruptions in Parliament during the Budget 2016 session beginning February 23, the JNU protest episode being the latest, it is good that Prime Minister Narendra Modi convened an all-party meeting to try and find ways to ensure smooth passage of not only the General Budget and the Railway Budget but also revive hopes of the clearance of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) Bill and also the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
But, how far it will help in the passage of Bills became very clear on the day he said in Assam that one family (Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi) is not allowing the passage of reform Bills in the Rajya Sabha to take revenge for its defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
If the Congress party stance is critical for passage of the GST or any major reform Bill in the Rajya Sabha because of a lack of a majority of the NDA in the upper house, it needs to be co-opted for this at some point of time.
Indulging in barb politics with the Congress party bosses has hardly helped the cause and if PM Modi wants to change the outcome in the Budget session or even in future, there has to be a consistency in his approach.
Blaming only the Congress party for failing to take his invitation to former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi for talks over tea, ahead of the previous session, to break the deadlock over the GST Bill, is not a good idea as it is the responsibility of the government of the day to ensure passage of critical legislations.
It is a fact that the Congress party is under tremendous pressure already to avoid disruption politics in Parliament as other opposition parties have indicated in the winter session that they were not in favour of supporting unnecessary disturbances that derail the legislative business.
The BJP has to capitalise on this in the Budget session and also going ahead — even on the GST Bill, it is only the Congress that is opposing it.
A consistent approach in placating Congress party, though it should have been done from the very beginning, will corner the party, forcing it to find ways to help the passage of reform legislations under pressure from other parties.
Similarly, in the handling of the two main retrospective tax cases also, Vodafone and Cairn, despite PM Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley assuring that the application of 2012 retrospective amendments will be avoided, the prime minister has gone to the extent of saying that it is a thing of the past, the income tax department is still continuing with them.
The department has extended the freeze on the sale of Cairn India shares owned by the UK-based Cairn Energy and has slapped a notice on Vodafone International Holdings, seeking Rs 14,200 crore in taxes and has threatened to seize its assets if the demand is not met.
Once the prime minister has promised the end of retrospective taxation in public, the actions of his government must be in synergy, but that has not happened.
A solution to this effect, therefore, must be announced in Budget 2016, either by scrapping the retrospective tax amendments altogether or handing over these cases to the A P Shah committee to find a solution.