A final decision on whether to boycott the house will be taken tomorrow at 5 pm
The opposition has decided to hold a planned boycott of the ongoing parliament session, upset over the government's refusal to send certain controversial bill for further scrutiny. The decision was taken this morning at a meeting between UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the leaders of other opposition parties.
Though most parties present favoured a boycott, but the only hitch, they felt, was that controversial bills like the ban on instant Triple Talaq, will be passed. A final decision on whether to boycott the house will be taken tomorrow at 5 pm.
"We have cooperated and passed 18 bills in this session together. We have made a list of seven bills which have not been subjected to the any parliamentary scrutiny. In that spirit of cooperation, we need to send these bills at least to a select committee," said Trinamool Congress's Derek O' Brien, who attended the meeting.
At the meeting, the parties drew up a list of bills that they say should be sent to select committees of parliament for further discussion.
The list was headed by the triple talaq bill. A close second was bill to amend the landmark Right to Information Bill, which was expected to be presented in the Rajya Sabha today, but was held back at the last minute.
"The two bills in the house are extremely important and i feel that the entire opposition feels that the central and state commissions both are being diluted by the RTI bill," the Congress's Ghulam Nabi Azad said.
The list also contains a bill to regulate and bring on par minimum wages across the nation. There is another labour law - the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions bill. The opposition has agreed that sending the four to select committees is non-negotiable, sources said.
The government still lacks the numbers to push through the bill in the upper house without help from the non-aligned parties. The NDA has 116 members in Rajya Sabha, five short of the majority mark.