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The Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, greets former Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, at a book launch function in the Capital on Thursday. - Kamal Narang

Our Bureau

New Delhi, July 31 The discord among various political combines in Parliament over pushing forward economic reforms notwithstanding, the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, has expressed confidence that he would be able to muster legislative support to ensure the passage of key financial Bills — banking, insurance and pension — in the coming days.

“Tempers are running high. Hopefully tempers will cool down. I am hopeful and confident that when things cool down, I will be able to reach out to every party in Parliament. There is virtually a consensus among all sections to push reforms forward except one who have an ideological opposition to it,” Mr Chidambaram said on the occasion of the launch of Mr Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar’s book ‘Escape from the Benevolent Zookeepers’ here today.

He highlighted that the Banking Regulation Amendment Bill, the Insurance Bill and the PFRDA Bill were in the last stage of passing and that each of the Bills were stuck only on one issue. The contentious issue on the banking Bill was removal of 10 per cent voting right cap in private banks. For insurance, it was raising the foreign direct investment limit from 26 per cent to 49 per cent. In the case of PFRDA Bill, the issue was that fund managers would be eventually drawn from the private sector.

Meanwhile, responding to former Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh’s observation at the function that the ruling alliance should not hesitate to come to Parliament to get the pending economic Bills passed, Mr Chidambaram said that the UPA combine had “no fear in facing Parliament.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that when the party leadership asserts itself over members, we can return to the legislative agenda,” he noted.

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