Amid din, Lok Sabha passes Finance Bill without debate

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14

The Lok Sabha today passed the all-important Finance Bill-2018 amid din and without any discussions and later also passed the Appropriation Bill delineating budget plans of departments by a voice vote.

In what the Congress described as “brazen use of brute majority”, the government came to the Lok Sabha today prepared to clear the Budget for the next fiscal. As soon as the House assembled for the day, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar requested LS Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to allow the government to take up the Finance and Appropriation Bill at noon instead of the evening as previously planned. The Speaker obliged and adjourned the House for the first time at 11 am.

As soon as the Lok Sabha reassembled at noon, Speaker allowed Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to move the Finance Bill along with 21 amendments and the entire business was passed by a voice vote even as the TDP and the AIADMK members stormed the Well of the House seeking special status to Andhra Pradesh and the setting up of the tribunal to resolve the Cauvery Water Dispute.

The Appropriation Bill was similarly taken up and in less than half an hour the entire financial business was transacted and the Lok Sabha adjourned for the day.

Later, Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia attacked the government for its “high handed ways” and used the result trends in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha byelections to say the people will send the BJP home in the 2019 General elections.

The Lok Sabha has not functioned even for a day ever since it assembled on March 5 after a recess of the Budget session. The current session will conclude on April 6.

With the passage of the budget in the Lok Sabha, the major financial business of the government has been done and the reference of the money Bill to the Rajya Sabha remains a mere formality.

Money bills are deemed to have been passed if the Rajya Sabha does not return these to the Lok Sabha in a span of 14 days.

RS WASHOUT

• The RS was adjourned on Wednesday resulting in washout of its proceedings for the eighth consecutive day with Opposition members continuing with their earlier pattern of protest
• The Opposition members raised their protest to a higher level raising slogans of ‘BJP hatao, desh bachao’ as news of SP-BSP surging ahead of BJP nominees in byelections for the two Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh trickled in in the post-lunch session