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The Opposition in the Rajya Sabha is trying to corner the Centre on slowdown in economy. All the Opposition parties have given notices for a short-duration discussion on the state of economy. They insist that it should be taken up at the earliest during the ongoing winter session of Parliament.
The newly added party to the Opposition benches, Shiv Sena, has also signed the notice moved by Trinamool Congress along with the SP, MDMK and DMK.
The principal Opposition party, the Congress, and the Left parties have also given separate notices on the matter.
The Opposition leaders say that the Centre’s policies have resulted in massive slowdown, job losses and unemployment. The Opposition parties will also raise issues such as disinvestment of PSUs during the discussion.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the Modi government continues to remain in a state of denial over “the fact that the Indian economy has virtually entered a stage of recession” with the GDP growth showing a decline for over two quarters.
“All sectors of our economy, agriculture, industry and services, have been subject to severe slowdown. Industrial output recorded the steepest decline in eight years. Power demand fell the most in the last twelve years. All current estimates of GDP growth rate have shown it to fall below 5 per cent,” he told reporters here on Monday.
Electoral bonds
The Congress is also likely to raise the issue of electoral bonds in the House. Congress spokesperson and MO Rajeev Gowda demanded that the Centre must explain alleged ‘policy favours, including sale of public assets’ that have taken place as a result of receiving electoral bonds from entities who have bought such bonds.
“We demand the immediate scrapping of the electoral bonds scheme, which even the RBI and Election Commission of India (ECI) have questioned, because it is opaque and a money laundering scheme. We demand an inquiry into how the Finance Ministry took decisions to usher in this corruption-inducing scheme overruling the objections of the RBI and ECI. If the government has nothing to hide let it come clean and reveal this information,” he charged.
Yechury said his party had decided not to accept donations through electoral bonds. “BJP got bulk of the funds,” he said.
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