New Delhi, January 30
The Budget session of Parliament is likely to begin on February 23 as the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh meets here on February 4 to finalise the broad schedule. The main focus of the session will be the transaction of the General and Railway budgets but the government is also keen to get passed a number of key reforms measures, including the contentious GST and Real Estate Bills. Sources said the session is likely to begin on February 23. Usually, the budget session begins in the third week of February and concludes early May. There is a recess in between when the budgetary demands for grants are discussed in the committees. The General Budget is expected to be presented in the Lok Sabha on February 29, the last day of February, as is the practice traditionally. Meanwhile, the process for the Assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry, where the tenure of the Assemblies is set to end in May-June, will begin in the midst of the session and that could raise questions about the number of sittings. A curtailment may be necessary to accommodate campaign by leaders during the elections. The Winter session had ended on December 23, leaving the Goods and Services Tax Bill and a number of other measures in a limbo. The government's legislative agenda had suffered a serious setback due to lack of support from the numerically stronger Congress-led opposition in Rajya Sabha. This had prompted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to raise the question of how an "unelected" House could overrule the mandate of the "elected" House. In the winter session, Rajya Sabha saw passage of nine bills but lost 47 hours due to disruptions caused almost every day by Congress which raised one issue after another. The Lok Sabha performed a little better as it passed 13 bills and saw discussions over various issues like price rise, flood and drought situation, despite repeated uproar created by the opposition Congress over various issues. — PTI 
