Coal news and updates

Coal and Mining Bills: How Arun Jaitley & company turned the tables in Rajya Sabha

Coal and power minister Piyush Goyal wrote a long Facebook post over the weekend, thanking the individual Opposition leaders and parties who supported the coal and mining Bills in the Rajya Sabha where the ruling coalition doesn't have a majority.

What he didn't, however, write about was the behind-the-scenes drama to split the Opposition and isolate the Congress and Left parties.

"Though we had spoken to all the leaders from our side, we could not be certain that they would actually vote for the bills," said Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. "We were worried till the last moment about how they would vote."

ET spoke to several BJP leaders, ministers and Opposition members to piece together the government's strategy, essentially driven by Rajya Sabha leader Arun Jaitley. Prime Minister Narendra Modi did his bit by speaking informally to Opposition leaders such as Naveen Patnaik, Mamata Banerjee, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati.

As part of a well-planned strategy, Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Goyal, NS Tomar, Naqvi and Jaitley reached out to "amenable" Opposition parties, holding secret meetings and through phone calls.

"We knew it would be difficult to get the Congress and Left parties on board, so we focused on the others including Biju Janata Dal, Trinamool, AIADMK, NCP, JD(U), SP and BSP," said a minister. "We talked to them separately, trying to impress upon them the benefits of the two bills ... for the states, and how it will bring in more transparency."

Jaitley, Goyal and Tomar met BJD leader and Odisha Chief Minister Patnaik at Odisha Bhavan during his visit to the Capital on March 9.

The PM had already spoken to Patnaik the previous night. They tried convincing Patnaik about supporting the coal, mines and land bills, said a BJD leader.

"The CM agreed to support only the coal bill initially since they accepted some of the suggestions made by him. Patnaik also made four suggestions regarding the land bill to which the BJP leaders responded positively. We had our differences over the mining bill though."

The BJD was opposed to the clause that allowed automatic lease extension of captive and non-captive merchant mines, whose lease validity had lapsed. "The matter was settled after deliberations with the Centre's team when they agreed to extend validity of mines only on the basis of the state government's recommendation," he added.

It was more or less the same strategy with the Trinamool. Modi had a meeting with Banerjee on March 9.

This was followed up by Goyal meeting her and Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien. In January, Jaitley had spoken to Banerjee in Kolkata.

"We held a series of meetings with Jaitley and Goyal. We suggested some amendments and they accepted them," O'Brien said. The clincher was a clause that allowed e-auctioning. "In Bengal, we have seen an 87% rise in revenues after e-auctions," he added.

Though the government had given up on the Congress, Naidu is believed to have reached out to Ghulam Nabi Azad but failed to get him on board. However, he was successful in convincing NCP chief Sharad Pawar to go with the government.

Modi's gesture of attending the prewedding ceremony of Mulayam Singh Yadav's grand-nephew had broken the ice between the two leaders.

A senior BJP leader said breaking the Opposition unity had become very critical. "The wakeup call for the government was when the Opposition forced an amendment to the Motion of Thanks over the President's address in Rajya Sabha. It was then the government decided that no stone would be left unturned to break the Opposition unity."

source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com