5.12.12

FDI in Retail debate in Parliament...Day 1


Battlelines were drawn in Lok Sabha over the entry of retail giants into the country as Congress and BJP squabbled, echoing by-now familiar arguments and accusing each other of taking U-turns. The debate, which is to be followed by a vote on Wednesday, also witnessed some feeble justifications on both sides of the political arena,with the treasury arguing that only people with cars will shop at Walmart and BJP quoting British MP Keith Vaz, cautioning India against the ‘supermarket culture’. UPA’s outside supporters — BSP and SP—joined the Opposition chorus in condemning FDI in multi-brand retail, but refrained from spelling out their stand on voting on it. The two parties are expected to abstain from voting, making way for the government to defeat the motion by a comfortable majority in the House.Hours before the debate began, parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath had exuded confidence about the numbers.
Just as the debate was to be taken up, there was sparring between the government and opposition over clubbing the motion for the modification of Foreign Exchange Management Act notification with the one on FDI. This was settled with the Speaker assuring the voting will be held separately.
The verbal duel continued through the debate, as charges and counter-charges flew across the House, at one point even provoking UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi to react. Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj tried to corner her referring to her statement that fastest pace of development has been witnessed by UPA-II government asking “except for seven years, there had been Congress governments between 1952 and 2012...were you challenging the government headed by your mother-in-law (Indira Gandhi ) or the one headed by your husband ( Rajiv Gandhi )…who were you referring to.” Gandhi answered, “you.” (Non-Congress governments have been in power for roughly 11 years, combined, since 1952.)
Listing out the reasons for her party’s stand against allowing FDI in multi-brand retail, Swaraj made it clear that her party was not opposed to FDI in all sectors. “Bring FDI in power, in airlines etc. We are not opposed to that. But we can sell our rice and dal. We don’t need a Walmart to do it for us,” she said. Amid applause from the Opposition benches and protests from the treasury side,Swaraj castigated FDI in multi-brand retail, refuted the government’s arguments in favour of the decision and appealed to it to do some soul-searching before the vote. “With folded hands I appeal to you to withdraw your decision. I won’t be happy to defeat you… If the government listens to us and doesn’t bring in FDI in multi-brand retail,we will go out to the world, matching steps with it to seek investment in other sectors.But if you thrust it on everybody I will appeal to all to vote against you… Under Rule 184, the government will not fall, only the decision on FDI will have to be withdrawn,” she said in an apparent message to BSP and SP.
Information technology minister Kapil Sibal took digs at both Left and BJP for opposing FDI in retail. “Why is the Left opposing. Its ideology itself is imported… Sushmaji you come from a multi-brand party...there is good competition between brands and Sushmaji competition is good for you,” he said. Sibal said that BJP’s vision document in 2004 talked about FDI but revoked it in 2009.

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