The Aadhaar Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on 11th March, but following that, there is a controversy between the government and the opposition. The opposition is mainly upset over the fact that the bill is said to be as a money bill. In addition to that, the opposition is frustrated and angry over the fact that the government would not give any time for carrying out discussions about it in the Rajya Sabha. After 14 days of the passing of the bill, it will be considered as accepted and passed. This implies that Upper house of the Parliament will not get the chance to scrutinize the bill.
On last Friday, Arun Jaitley, the Finance minister rejected the demand of the opposition in terms of the bill and referred it to a Standing Committee. Overruling the objections of Congress, Jaitley had also said that it was a money bill and the government does not have a majority over it. The finance minister also sent a proposal for taking the bill into consideration. On this there were concerns raised over the invasion of privacy.
The leader of the Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge and P Venugopal supported the concern of the demand, and they said that they were not against any forms of flaws.
Under Article 109, the opposition has therefore planned to move an amendment. This will definitely not stop the bill, but it will cause some form of inconvenience to the government. When a bill is passed with amendment in the Rajya Sabha, it comes with lots of symbolic elements. It is crucial to note that the BJP also opposed on the passing of the Aadhaar Bill, and they raised several issues. This was claimed by Abhishek Singhvi, the spokesperson of Congress Party.
In an effort to counter the argument of the Congress party, Chandan Mitra from BJP said that they will get the scope to discuss each and every issue associated with the bill. The discussions will take place on the floor of Rajya Sabha. He also said that if any amendment is moved in the process, the overall procedure will be delayed, and this will affect the entire country. Moving amendments has become the hallmark of the Opposition in this context.
Karan Thapar of India Today discussed about this issue on his show To the Point and extensively covered by
Live Hindi News portals and channels. He discussed this issue with a panel of experts and got reports about the controversy of the Aadhaar Bill. According to
Hindi News Online some of the experts included Chandan Mitra, the MP of Rajya Sabha representing BJP, Abhishek Singvi, the spokesperson of Congress, D Raja, the CPI Rajya Sabha MP, Ashok Malik, the commentator and columnist and Aditi Phadnis, the political editor of the Business Standard.
Different people had to express different opinions on the show and hence no proper conclusion was evident. Jaitley was earlier of the view that the targeted subsidy through Aadhaar cards had resulted in savings of more than 15000 crores at the centre. The money can be used to the Consolidated Fund of India.
