The Constitution Amendment Bill, which provides for the automatic removal of the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers, and Ministers from their positions if they are detained for more than thirty days, has been stalled. The Joint Parliamentary Committee formed for this purpose failed to approve the report on Friday. Despite a nominal opposition presence, the committee expressed disagreements over the report, prompting further discussion.
Top government sources stated that this bill is not a priority in the monsoon session of Parliament, which begins on Monday. The government’s priority is to convert two ordinances into law and pass three new bills. Additionally, the government will push for a Constitution Amendment Bill to implement delimitation and women’s reservation. It is expected to receive support from all opposition parties except the Congress and the Samajwadi Party. To achieve this, the government is willing to make provisions that would increase the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and all legislative assemblies by fifty percent.
Harsimrat Kaur Badal, representing the Akali Dal, later resigned from the committee. Supriya Sule of the NCP-SP and Asaduddin Owaisi of the AIMIM, who were also part of the committee, submitted a note of dissent to the report. However, when it was determined that the report would not be released, they withdrew the note.
Earlier, the meeting witnessed quite dramatic developments. The committee had decided to make two important and three general recommendations. When the meeting began at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Law and Legislative Affairs briefed the committee. Subsequently, several issues were discussed in the committee meeting. When it came to passing the report, a sudden demand arose for a vote on each recommendation.
The first recommendation was to replace “removal” with “suspension.” The second recommendation was that action be taken only for serious crimes punishable by a sentence of five years or more for detention exceeding thirty days.
Now, in a way, the bill to remove the PM and CM has been shelved. An opposition MP said that the government was using it as a trial balloon. It wanted to test the opposition’s intentions. By not introducing it now, it is also sending a message to those opposition parties who were apprehensive about its misuse. By doing so, the government can bring them together to support the 131st Amendment Bill to the Constitution, which addresses delimitation and women’s reservations.