New Delhi : The Congress cited power of democracy and a strong opposition saying it forced a ‘weak Prime Minister’ to step backwards on crucial policy issues including the Broadcast bill, Indexation in Capital Gains tax and the lateral entry into the civil services.
“In the past two months, there have been three key policy U-turns by PM Modi. These were the Broadcast bill, Indexation in Capital Gains Tax and the lateral entry into the civil services. The government order on Tuesday cancelling the lateral entry scheme showed that we now have a weak Prime Minister and a strong Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi. After the 2024 elections, the BJP got reduced from 303 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 to 240 seats. They lost the majority mark and are running a coalition government. The LoP protested against all three decisions and has become the voice of the people. It is time to say ‘Jai Samvidhan’,” Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore told ETV Bharat.
The draft Broadcasting bill was withdrawn by the ministry of information and broadcasting recently following widespread public criticism that it aimed to bring online content creators under the purview of licensing or registration. The draft legislation also aimed to regulate the content services of over-the-top (OTT) entertainment apps such as Netflix and Disney Hotstar.
LoP Rahul Gandhi while speaking over the Union Budget 2024-25 in Parliament had termed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s proposal to remove Indexation in Capital Gains Tax and higher tax on savings and investment gains a “betrayal of the middle class” which was already reeling under the Centre’s tax system.
"The indexation issue affected around 7 crore people who filed income taxes, owned or aspired to own a home and invest their savings,” said Tagore.
The indexation proposal was later withdrawn by the Modi government which also agreed to send the controversial Waqf Property Amendment bill to a joint select committee of Parliament for further consultations after a united opposition accused the Centre of trying to polarize the electorate and grab Waqf property during the recent session.
According to SP Lok Sabha MP Harendra Malik the reality in the Lok Sabha had changed but the Modi government was still continuing with its old unilateral style of working.
“Earlier, they had a brute majority in the Lok Sabha and would pass many bills without any discussion. Now the opposition is strong and united. So that is not possible. The opposition is guarding the interests of the people and will oppose any such move by the Centre,” Malik told ETV Bharat.
“I am surprised that they do not even listen to their allies. The JD-U had been supporting Muslim reservation for long and the same goes for another NDA ally TDP. Former union minister Ram Vilas Paswan was our friend and always cared for the downtrodden. Now his son Chirag, a union minister, is following the footsteps of his late father,” said Malik.
Union minister Chirag Paswan had expressed his concern over lack of reservations in the proposed lateral entry scheme which had been criticized by LoP Rahul Gandhi and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge. The Congress now plans to protest against the alleged tampering with the reservations for the SC/ST categories across the country to target the NDA.
