Launching Food Security programme
amounts to an affront to Parliament & Constitution
On August 7, UPA government withdrew in Parliament
the Food Security Ordinance promulgated on July 5 and introduced the Food
Security Bill to replace the same.
Till August 26 the two Houses of Parliament had
not been able to find time to give a consideration to the Bill and finally put their
seal of approval. As things stand, nobody is sure whether the Bill, in its
present form, will formally get Parliament's approval.
Certain political parties and groups have vented
out their intention to introduce certain amendments to the Congress-led UPA's
Bill. As the UPA does not enjoy a clear-cut majority to get the Bill through in
its present form, it has to adopt a policy of give-and-take. In all
probability, after the Parliament's approval the Bill may not exactly be the
same as introduced on August 7. The Bill will become a law only the moment it
gets the accent of the President of India after the same has been passed by
both the Houses of Parliament.
In other words, neither the Food Security
Ordinance promulgated on July 5 already withdrawn in Parliament nor the Food
Security Bill introduced in Parliament on August 7 have the stamp of approval
of Parliament and, therefore, are not laws which can be legally enforced by any
government.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the Food
Security Bill has electoral and political overtones and designs. Proposed to be
got through at the fag end of the present tenure of Parliament and Congress-led
UPA government, Congress had thought that the Bill will overcome all its
hurdles to become a law and could easily be launched on former Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi's birthday to draw electoral mileage. For one reason or the other,
this plan could not fructify as anticipated. Yet, the Congress did go ahead
with launching its food security programme in terms of the provisions in the
Bill on August 20 in the five Congress-ruled States of Delhi, Himachal and
Haryana in the north and Kerala and Karnataka in the south. It has given ample indication
of its intentions to draw electoral mileage in the coming State assembly and
Parliament elections in 2014.
As per provisions of the Constitution, no
government can utilize public funds without the approval of Parliament. That is
why when elections are announced and a regular budget cannot be presented, the
Parliament approves a vote on account authorizing the government to meet the
day-to-day financial requirements in terms of pay of the establishment and
routine expenditure on the ongoing services for a period of two or four months.
The Food Security Bill proposes an annual subsidy of `1,24,724 crore for the year
2013-2014. Parliament has not sanctioned this amount so far.
Further,
as a part of its media blitzkrieg Congress has also started claiming that
"HUNGER WILL BE HISTORY".
