Winter Session of Parliament to begin today; farm laws, MSP issue on top of agenda

The Winter Session of the Parliament is all set to commence from today, November 29, and the Centre will introduce the bill to repeal the three controversial farm laws in the session.

It is expected that the opposition parties will also push for a discussion regarding the minimum support price (MSP) issue.

Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar will introduce the Farm Laws Repeal Bill 2021 in the Lok Sabha on the first day of the Winter Session. The Parliament will most likely see a heated debate over the farm laws and farmers’ protests today.

Apart from the major bill to repeal the farm laws, the government will also introduce 25 other bills in the session, one of which is to ban all but a few private cryptocurrencies while allowing an official digital currency by the RBI.

A report of the Joint Committee of Parliament on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 will also be tabled in the two Houses during the session. The bill, seeking to provide for the protection of personal data of individuals and establish a Data Protection Authority for the same, was brought in Parliament in 2019 and was referred to the joint committee for further scrutiny on the demand of opposition members.

As per the business list of the government’s legislative for this session, three bills have been listed to replace as many ordinances, which are the Narcotics Drug and Psychotic Substances Bill to amend an act of the same name, the Central Vigilance Commission (Amendment) Bill and the Delhi Special Police Establishment (Amendment) Bill.

The Constitution (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, to amend the SC and ST list of Uttar Pradesh, will also be introduced in the Winter Session of the Parliament, just a few months before the UP Assembly elections 2022.

A similar bill to amend the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes list of Tripura will be introduced. The High Court and Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill, 2021, to amend the salaries act of judges of the higher judiciary, will also be introduced by the government.

Other bills which have been included in the 26 draft legislation are the Emigration Bill 2021, the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2021, the National Anti-Doping Bill 2021, and the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill 2021 among others.