Deadlock to continue in third week of winter session over Niranjan Jyoti's hate speech

New Delhi: As the winter session of Parliament enters its third week on Monday, the deadlock over Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti's hate speech is showing no signs to end.

Cornering the BJP government in Lok Sabha, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had led the opposition walk out over the government's refusal to sack Niranjan Jyoti. But the opposition later agreed to let Parliament function if a resolution condemning the unparliamentary language was passed in both Houses.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu also appealed to opposition parties to leave the issue behind and enable smooth functioning of the House.

Unfazed by the stalemate, the government has lined up a heavy legislative agenda in Parliament this week including a bill seeking to replace coal blocks allocation ordinance. The ordinance was brought in the wake of the Supreme Court decision cancelling 214 coal blocks in September which had unveiled the NDA government's ambitious coal sector reforms.

The government had promulgated Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 2014 in October to facilitate auctioning of the cancelled coal blocks.

The bill seeking to replace Textile Undertakings (Nationalisation) Laws (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2014 is also on the agenda. The ordinance was brought to shield the National Textile Corporation from rent control laws that have been used to evict its sick textile units from prime land in several cities.

Anti-hijacking Bill and Supplementary Demands for Grants and related appropriation bills are also on priority agenda so also Payments and Settlements Systems (Amendment) Bill, 2014 and Appropriation Acts (Repeal) Bill, 2014.

In the Rajya Sabha, several bills were scheduled to be taken up during the second week but could not be done so due to disruptions.

They include: The Textiles Undertakings (Nationalisation) Laws (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2014 to replace an Ordinance, The Constitution Scheduled Castes Orders (Amendment) Bill, 2014, The Central Universities Bill, 2014 and The School of Planning and Architecture Bill, 2014 that have already been passed by the Lok Sabha this session.