The Opposition in the Lok Sabha on Thursday accused the government of using the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate to harass leaders while opposing two controversial ordinances pushed by the government to extend the tenure of the chiefs of the two investigative agencies.

The government, however, used its brute majority in the Lok Sabha to get the two ordinances turned into bills passed by a voice vote, defeating several amendments moved by Opposition leaders.

The Central Vigilance Commission (Amendment) Bill and the Delhi Special Police Establishment (Amendment) Bill were passed by the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The bills were brought to replace the two ordinances hurriedly promulgated by the government last month to extend the tenure of the CBI and the ED chiefs for up to five years as opposed to the fixed two-year tenure.

“The government has used the CBI and the ED to harass Opposition leaders but all their efforts were defeated by the people... The BJP had to face a humiliating drubbing in the Bengal polls,” Trinamul Congress’s Sougata Roy told the Lok Sabha while participating in a debate over the two bills.

Roy said the CBI and the ED came under Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, he pointed out, rarely attended Parliament. “The Prime Minister is scared to face Parliament,” he said, inviting protests from the treasury benches.

DMK’s A. Raja accused the government of promulgating the ordinances to keep the chiefs of the CBI and the ED under its control and referred to raids by the agencies on Opposition leaders just before polls. “How can we trust the government?” he said.

“The CBI and the ED have not covered them in glory… The carrot of extension dangled is too terrifying a carrot and the possibility of subversion is immense,” Manish Tiwari of the Congress said. He moved a statutory resolution against the bills that was defeated by voice vote.

AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi opposed the bills and said the fixed tenure could not extended on the whims and desires of the Prime Minister. “The extension of tenure will be given as ‘bakshish’ (patronage),” he said.

The Prime Minister’s Office rejected the allegations of the Opposition leaders and said the extension of the tenure of the CBI and ED chiefs was aimed at streamlining the process to provide stability. He claimed the government’s top priority was to provide independence to the two top investigative agencies.