Opposition: Government alone responsible for house deadlock

As the government-opposition stand-off continued in Parliament on Wednesday with raging protests, hurried passing of some more bills amid serial adjournments of both the Houses, leaders of 14 opposition parties in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha issued a joint statement, blaming the government for creating the deadlock by refusing a House discussion on the Pegasus issue. Amid the growing buzz of a likely curtailment of the session, these leaders urged the government to respect parliamentary democracy and accept the demand for discussions.

In what is seen as a response to PM Modi’s charge that the opposition was insulting Parliament and the people of the nation, these leaders said: “It is unfortunate that the government has unleashed a misleading campaign to malign the combined opposition and blaming it for the continued disruption in Parliament. The responsibility for the deadlock lies squarely at the doorsteps of the government, which remains arrogant and obdurate and refuses to accept the opposition’s demand for an informed debate in both the Houses.”

They also spelt out their priority demands and highlighted the importance of debating the farmers issues. “The opposition parties stand firm and united on their demand for a discussion on the Pegasus issue in both the Houses, replied to by the home minister, as this has national security dimensions. The opposition has also unequivocally conveyed that the discussion on the farmers’ issues and agitations arising from the three anti-farmer and black farm laws should follow the discussion on Pegasus”.


The signatories were Mallikarjun Kharge and Anand Sharma (Congress), Sharad Pawar (NCP), TR Balu and Tiruchi Siva ( DMK), Ramgopal Yadav (SP), Derek O’Brien and Kalyan Banerjee (TMC), Sanjay Raut and Vinayak Raut (Shiv Sena), Manoj Jha (RJD), Elamaram Kareem (CPI-M), Sushil Gupta (AAP), ET Mohd. Basheer (IUML), Hasnain Masoodi (NC), Binoy Viswam (CPI), NK Premachandran (RSP), MV Shreyams Kumar (LJD).