Parliament deadlock: NDA to announce street agitation today

NEW DELHI: The winter session of parliament ended transacting little business, but the acrimony between the government and BJP continued.

The Opposition refused to allow any business to be conducted in the session unless the government constituted a joint parliamentary committee to probe the 2G spectrum allocation. The government refused to yield and both blamed each other for parliamentary paralysis when the session ended on Monday.

Within minutes of the conclusion of the session, in which only around seven of the scheduled 138 hours of business were conducted over 23 sittings, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal launched an offensive on BJP saying it “did not have the courage” to move a no confidence motion. He dubbed the demand for a JPC to probe scams like 2G spectrum as “most untenable”.

“My charge against BJP is that they could not have got courage to move a no confidence motion. They had the ulterior motive of paralysing the government,” he said at a press conference while replying to a question on BJP leader L K Advani’s charge that government was threatening the opposition with a mid-term poll.

“Never before in the history of Indian parliament has a complete session being washed out without transacting any business. This is violative of all the rules of business and ethics. It is rather criminal,” Bansal said.
However, he hinted that government may make an effort to resolve the deadlock. He indicated that the government may hold discussions with the Opposition to resolve the stand-off through dialogue.

“In a democracy, dialogue has to continue. We will not mind. But none has been planned. We hope that having gone so far they would see the reason.” Bansal said the Opposition would be responsible if the budget session was disrupted and the budget was not passed, leading to a constitutional crisis.

BJP has made it clear that it was determined to take its demand for a JPC to investigate scams into the budget session of Parliament, which begins in February. After the session ended, Opposition MPs sat on a dharna outside Parliament House. NDA plans a nation-wide agitation, which will be announced on Tuesday.