Rahul Gandhi jolted the UPA government on Friday by trashing a controversial ordinance designed to protect convicted lawmakers from disqualification.“My opinion of the ordinance is that it is complete nonsense and should be torn up and thrown away,” the normally reticent Congress vice-president said of a piece of legislation steered by the PM and widely thought to have the backing of top Congress leaders.
Rahul’s condemnation of the ordinance, which now looks dead in the water, exposed divisions between ruling party and government and undermined the position of PM Singh at the worst possible time -- two days before talks with Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif and hours before a meeting with Barack Obama in New York.
The 43-year-old Gandhi scion strode into a media interaction by chief party spokesperson Ajay Maken at the Press Club of India and proceeded to demolish the controversial legislation before stunned partymen and journalists. “What the government has done is wrong,”, he said, adding that it was high time that political parties stopped taking decisions based on political considerations. The ordinance overturns a Supreme Court ruling mandating disqualification of convicted lawmakers facing at least a two-year jail sentence.
The Congress was trying to push it through despite a bill pending in Parliament, possibly to protect party Rajya Sabha MP Rasheed Masood and ally Lalu Prasad. But President Pranab Mukherjee, who has to sign the ordinance, is understood to have demurred, and sought clarifications.
No comments:
Post a Comment