5 Questions: Opposition does not want any discussion in Parliament, says Sanjay Jaiswal

The Opposition does not want any discussion in Parliament. The last time also, they put a short duration discussion on price rise, but they boycotted it. They know they are at fault. They just want to get the limelight by staging protests.

But are they not raising an issue concerning the lives of common people?

They are talking about GST on packed food items. All such decisions were made by the GST Council in which there are representatives from the state governments, including people from the Congress party, the Communists, TMC and others. They did not place any objections there (during the council meetings). Now, they are asking why the GST Council has taken a decision like this. But the Centre has nothing to do with it.

There was an all-party meeting ahead of the Monsoon session. Did the Opposition not say they would raise these issues?

I am a member of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC). On the very first day, the meeting of the BAC took place. They (Opposition members) gave their agenda to discuss and our Parliamentary Affairs Minister and the Speaker agreed on all those issues. But once they are outside, they do not follow it. Their decision on whether a discussion will take place or not is not taken by their MPs, but by one MP who keeps going abroad and is not interested in the running of Parliament.

According to the slogans raised near the Gandhi statue, the Opposition said they wanted a debate on GST

Who stopped them? Why did you (the Opposition) not say it in the BAC meeting? Not even once did they mentioned it.

When the BJP was in the Opposition, the party had stalled Parliament proceedings on a number of issues. The Opposition now says that the BJP in power has adopted a different stand on the matter.

I was part of that parliamentary group of the BJP. We stalled the proceedings when corruption was confirmed, or there was a scandal in a particular department of the government. Most of the time, our protest was after the Supreme Court took a stand on those corruption charges. Our stand on such issues were proved right.