Parliament session beginning tomorrow

The last session of the current Lok Sabha beginning on Thursday is expected to be stormy with political parties likely to extract the maximum mileage ahead of the general elections.

The last session of the current Lok Sabha beginning on Thursday is expected to be stormy with political parties likely to extract the maximum mileage ahead of the general elections.

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The session spread over ten sittings is essentially for taking a vote on account on Railway and General Budgets but being the first one during the year, it will begin with the President's address on the opening day.

An inkling of the shape of things to come was evident when the ruling Congress and main opposition BJP virtually kicked off their poll campaign on Sunday, taking on each other on issues like terrorism, unemployment and inflation.

The controversy over Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami's recommendation for the removal of his colleague Navin Chawla is likely to be exploited to the hilt by the BJP which has been accusing Chawla of functioning in a partisan manner.

Congress is likely to attack the saffron party for raking up the Ram Temple issue ahead of the polls.

Leader of Opposition L K Advani is expected to press his demand for a judicial probe into the Mumbai terror strikes and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has raised a controversy speaking of local support to the terrorists.

Interim Rail Budget will be presented on Friday and a similar interim General Budget on Monday. Both the budgets are expected to be vote-on-account exercise providing for expenditure for the first few months of the new financial year.

The regular budget is expected to be presented by the new government that will take over after the elections likely to be completed in May.

Both the Houses would discuss and adopt the Motion of Thanks to the President for her address.

The government also plans to get a number of bills cleared, some of which like the Insurance Bills were long pending because of stiff opposition from Left parties when it backed the government from outside.

The global economic meltdown and its impact on India and the alarming projection of job loss are likely to be raised by the Left parties.

The President's rule in Jharkhand, imposed on January 19, will come up for scrutiny in both Houses.

The state was brought under Central rule and the state assembly kept in suspended animation after Chief Minister Shibhu Soren resigned after losing a by-election in the state.