• The Lok Sabha’s marathon voting on the Essential Services Maintenance Bill went into late hours as the Opposition fought the measure all the way. Earlier, the House gave its consent to take up the bill for consideration after a 14-day resistance spread over three days. Before moving to the second stage, the House rejected by 216 votes to 69 a statutory resolution seeking disapproval of the ordinance which the Bill seeks to replace. With amendments exceeding 500, the Opposition forced the House to divide repeatedly for one hour just to decide, whether or not to take up the consideration of the clauses. The Opposition lost its battle after 40 minutes to stall the extension of the strike ban coverage to a wide spectrum of private and public sector industries. Home Minister Giani Zail Singh made light of the Opposition amendments saying they were “reasonable but not acceptable”.

   Antulay’s Trusts

• Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s inability to decide on the future of the trusts set up by A R Antulay is, in turn, delaying a decision on the fate of the Maharashtra Chief Minister. According to sources, the party high command has not been able to ascertain the extent of Antulay’s fund collections for the various private trusts set up by him. The reports of the central investigative agencies asked to probe Antulay’s trusts have not yet been processed.