NEW DELHI, Feb 28:
Andhra Pradesh is set to come under a spell of President’s Rule with the Union Cabinet today approving the State Governor’s recommendation for it while keeping the Assembly under suspended animation.
Governor E S L Narasimhan had recommended central rule in the State after the resignation of Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy days before Parliament gave its nod for the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh will be the second State after Delhi to go under central rule with its Assembly being kept under suspended animation.
The bill to create the country’s 29th State, by splitting Andhra Pradesh, was passed by Parliament on February 20 in the just-concluded Winter Session.
A number of ruling Congress MLAs from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema also announced resignation from their posts and also from the party over the issue of division.
Reddy had resigned on February 19 from his post as well as Congress protesting the manner in which the State was being divided “by throwing all norms to the wind” and lashed out at political parties for dividing the State in quest of “votes”.
He had quit a day after the bill to carve out Telangana was passed by Lok Sabha with Congress and BJP coming together on the issue.
A section of the AP unit of Congress was in favour of propping up an interim Government, contending that their prospects in Seemandhra were bleak now in view of the party pushing ahead with the formation of Telangana, coupled with the anti-incumbency factor after having been in office for ten years.
Ruling Congress, however, did not propose another candidate to succeed Reddy. He had tried to thwart division of Andhra Pradesh by ensuring rejection of the Telangana bill by the State legislature, invoking displeasure of the party.
The term of the 294-member current Andhra Pradesh Assembly expires on June 2, 2014 before which elections are to be held. The Election Commission is set to declare Assembly polls along with the Lok Sabha elections in the next few days.
Meanwhile, the much-anticipated anti-graft ordinances being pushed by Rahul Gandhi were today put off by the Union Cabinet.
The Cabinet which met for nearly two hours decided to postpone the ordinances amid speculation that its special meeting could be held early next week on the issue.
There was, however, no official word on it by the Government.
As soon as the Cabinet had taken up the packed agenda for the day, Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth announced that items relating to the ordinances stand “postponed”, sources said.
The sources said ordinances on Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill and Right of Citizens for Time-Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill – both dealing with corruption – were on the agenda.
These are among the anti-corruption bills being pushed by Rahul Gandhi to create a “framework” to fight graft.
These proposed legislations could not be passed during the extended Winter Session of Parliament due to disturbances.
Along with these, the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill, Rights of Persons with Disability Bill, Security Laws (Amendment) Bill and Delhi High Court Act (Amendment) Bill were also on the agenda.
The Law Ministry had sent notes with all the ordinances on whether the reasons given by various ministries to promulgate the executive orders were acceptable to the Union Cabinet. The reason was that often ordinances have to withstand judicial scrutiny.
As Parliament session came to an end on February 21 and five of the six anti-graft measures being spearheaded by Gandhi failed to see the light of the day, the Congress Vice President had launched a blistering attack on the Opposition and had said that he would discuss with the party leadership regarding the option of ordinance route to push the measures.
Rahul Gandhi had said he had talked to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi on taking the ordinance route.
Addressing a group of civil rights activists, Gandhi had said, “I have heard what you are saying about the ordinance. I have already had discussions with the leaders in my party and we are going to try and see that we can manage that. Let us see if the ordinance can be brought or not.”
The bills that Gandhi was seeking to push through included Public Procurement Bill, Citizens Charter Bill, a bill dealing with Bribery of Foreign Officials and Prevention of Corruption Act (Amendment)Bill besides the Whistleblower Bill, which was passed by Parliament.
Government, the sources said, decided against brining ordinance on Public Procurement Bill and the one dealing with bribery of foreign officials citing technicalities.
While the Whistleblowers protection bill and the Street Vendors Bill have been passed, three more consensus bills are pending—Grievance Redress Bill, Disability Bill and SC/ST PoA Amendment Bill. These could not be passed in the last session of the 15th Lok Sabha.
Rahul Gandhi had assured protesters, who were demanding that the laws be enacted, on the issue of promulgating ordinances. He had said the Government will do its best to have ordinances notified as he understood the importance and urgency of these bills.
Meanwhile, Government today raised dearness allowance to 100 per cent, from 90 per cent, benefiting its 50 lakh employees and 30 lakh pensioners.
The decision to hike DA for its employees, and to provide dearness relief for pensioners, by 10 per cent to 100 per cent was taken by the Union Cabinet in its meeting held here.
“The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal to hike Dearness allowance for its employees and dearness relief for its pensioners to 100 per cent in its meeting held here,” a source said.
This increase in the dearness allowance by the UPA-2 Government comes ahead of the imposition of the model code of conduct by the Election Commission.
The code is likely to come into force with the announcement of the schedule for the forthcoming general elections in a week or so.
Also it would be the second double digit DA hike in a row. The Government had announced a hike of 10 per cent to 90 per cent in September last year, effective from July 1, 2013.
The new hike in DA would be effective from the January 1 this year.
As per practice, the Government uses Consumer Price Index- Industrial Workers data of the past 12 months to arrive at a quantum for the purpose of any DA hike. Thus, the retail inflation for industrial workers between January 1 to December 31, 2013 was used to take a final call on the matter.
According to the provisional data released by Government on January 31, the retail inflation for factory workers in December was 9.13 per cent. The revised retail inflation data for January is scheduled to be released today.
An official had said earlier that the preliminary assessment suggests that DA hike will not be less than 10 per cent and would be effective from January 1. (PTI)
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