Incidentally, the budget will also be passed this session

Finance Minister P Chidambaram should be a relieved man. Nobody seems to be overly taxed about what permutations he is about to unleash in h...

Finance Minister P Chidambaram should be a relieved man. Nobody seems to be overly taxed about what permutations he is about to unleash in his Budget.

Besides a few inside-page manifestos8212;8221;we want over Rs 50,000 crore for the social sector8221;8212;neither the Left nor the Opposition is saying what they would like the minister to do or not do.

Partly deflecting their attention is the impending assembly elections in five states8212;two being the lifeline states for the Left8212;West Bengal and Kerala. But more than that, it is the foreign policy that is to dominate the agenda for the budget session.

If the winter session slid by on Iraqi oil, this one seems to be veering eastwards for a clash on Iran. The difference is that, the last time, it was the Opposition BJP that was moving in for the kill. This time, with the BJP deciding to back the government on the Iran issue, key ally Left is heading for an overkill.

As of now, while the Left is busy giving soundbites on how they would bring the government to its knees over the Iran vote, the BJP is happily back to familiar turf: how the Congress is 8220;practising blatant minorityism8221;8212;the spur being the proposed census of Muslims in the Army.

What will the BJP do when the Left-backed debate takes place under Rule 193?

V K Malhotra, BJP deputy leader in the Lok Sabha says: 8220;There8217;s going to be no voting, so our objection will be on the way the government handled the issue8212;which made it look like we lost our independent foreign policy perspective. We are not bothered how Russia or Chnia voted, but we are not in favour of Iran going nuclear. In Parliament, we won8217;t go with the Left or the Samajwadis on this. The Left was critical of India going nuclear after Pokhran-II. Now they want us to allow Iran and North Korea to go nuclear. It is totally unacceptable8221;.

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The BJP has its own to-do list. To wit, the Muslim census in the armed forces, Election Commissioner Navin Chawla taking MPLAD donations from Congress MPs for charities run by him, the 8220;unconstitutional dissolution8221; of the Bihar assembly and, of course, the clean chit to Quattrocchi.

nbsp;	Some of the bills to be introduced in the Budget session:

		nbsp;	8226; The Information Technology Amendment Bill, 8226; The Insectiides Amendment bill 8226; The Drugs Control Repeal bill 8226; The Indian Telegraph Amendment billl 8226; The Competition Amendment bill 8226; The Companies Amendment bill 8226; The Forward Contracts Regulation Amendment bill 8226; The Union Duties of Excise Electricity Distribution Repeal Bill 8226; The SBI subsidiary Amendment bill 8226; The Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages Univeristy bill 8226; The National Institute of Technology bill 8226; The Immoral Traffic prevention Amendment bill 8226; The Consitution Scheduled Castes order Amendment Bill, 2006 8226; The Sashastra Seema Bal Bill, 2006	nbsp;

The government, on its part, is ready with its own arsenal of 8220;we care8221; statements. On the forefront are three bills 8212; on minority education, communal violence and an amendment to the IMDT Foreigners Act. The elections in Assam clearly colour the last.

There will be other gestures too: a bill to protect senior citizens from unscrupulous children and one on the unorganised sector. The attempt to mollify the domestic audience, the government probably hopes, will balance the fireworks on foreign policy issues. Pundits relate the two, saying the government is seeking to offset the ticklish Iran issue with a brazen pro-Muslim stance.

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There is also another move in the offing 8212; through the brand new Ministry for Minority Affairs, for which AR Antulay has been brought out of the woodwork8212;to restore the minority status to Aligarh Muslim University. The Human Resources Ministry, however, is yet to notify the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry on this bill. The Muslim headcount in the Army too, falls in this bracket. It already had curious results.

The Samajwadi Party, which treats Muslims as its copyright votebank, is so edgy that it8217;s gone into an overdrive on Iran.

The Left, estranged from the UPA on many issues, invoked the Third Front bogey8212;enabling the BJP-JDU to call them the 8220;worst kind of minority vote-mongers8221;.

Ironically, the build-up might be more impressive than the actual storm. It could even end up as a Left-SP show, though the latter has backed down from its original threat of bringing a no-confidence motion against the government.

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As for the government, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi is displaying the abhay mudra, true to the Congress poll symbol: 8220;Let there be discussion8221;.