NEW DELHI: With another week of the budget session facing the prospect of a complete wash out, the ruling BJP has squarely blamed the “anti-democratic”
Congress for the impasse that has led to no business being transacted since the House opened after a recess.
Briefing reporters after a BJP parliamentary party meeting, attended by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and party chief
Amit Shah, parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar said the government has been talking to different parties to break the deadlock in
Parliament and targeted Congress.
Kumar also made light of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's invite to opposition parties for a dinner, saying her dinner politics will be only about dinner while the BJP under Modi remains a “winner” citing the fact that the ruling NDA is steadily attracting more allies.
He claimed BJP's alliance with local parties in north-eastern states showed that NDA is becoming “NDA plus”. Congress is becoming more and more isolated, he remarked. He then referred back to the days of Emergency in the country declared by the then Indira Gandhi in the mid-70's and accused Congress of harbouring a similar mindset.
During the Emergency, Congress had imposed censors, extended Parliament's tenure to six years from five years and put opposition leaders in jails, he said. “It continues to have a similar repressive mindset toward democracy. Congress is not letting Parliament function. This is our duty to let it work and the government has been doing everything to ensure that it happens,” he said.
The opposition parties however said there was no attempt by the government so far to try and run the House, as the Opposition is keen to raise the Nirav Modi-bank scam issue and question the government on it.
Kumar claimed that Congress was running away from a debate on the PNB scam as it “feared” that many skeletons in its cupboard will tumble out if a debate occurred.
The proceedings of Lok Sabha and
Rajya Sabha on Tuesday morning were disrupted again as various parties continued with their protests on several issues, including the PNB scam.
