Meetings fail to resolve parliamentary deadlock

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, APRIL 16. There was no clear political sign today that Parliament would indeed run smoothly from tomorrow. As expected, Parliament was adjourned for the day after obituary references to Devi Lal, former Deputy Prime Minister.

An indignant and angry Congress made it clear that it was not impressed by the lack of any concrete Government action on the Tehelka issue and that the Government should not expect cooperation if it continued to intimidate and blackmail the Congress president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, on the basis of ``totally frivolous charges'' made by the Janata Party leader, Dr. Subramanian Swamy.

Two meetings - a meeting of party leaders called by the Speaker, Mr. G.M.C. Balayogi, this morning, and the Business Advisory Committee meeting of the Lok Sabha this evening - failed to break the parliamentary deadlock. The only hope was that by tomorrow morning parties would respond to the ``fervent appeal'' made by Mr. Balayogi to allow Parliament to resume debate and discussion on all the important public issues before it. Mr. Balayogi made the appeal at the BAC meeting after it became clear that the prospect of ``normal'' functioning of Parliament was rather bleak.

An attempt was also made by some parties (reportedly with Government encouragement) to float the idea of curtailing the resumed budget session to the end of the month in view of the Assembly elections in five States. But this was rejected by the Congress. The session would be held as scheduled in the absence of consensus on a curtailed session, the Speaker said.

It seems it was Mr. Sharad Pawar (Nationalist Congress Party) who made the suggestion to end this session on April 30 at the party leaders' meeting. The Government had indicated that it would go along with the consensus.

Opposition parties privately said that the Government wanted just time enough for the Finance Bill to be passed, and wanted minimum time for a debate on the stock market scam, the telecom policy bungling, the Tehelka issue, farmers' and weavers' suicides, the effect of the WTO regime and a host of other uncomfortable subjects.

At the party leaders' meeting in the morning, the Congress and the Left had said that the Government's failure to respond adequately to the Tehelka expose had resulted in the impasse in the last 10 days of the first part of the budget session. The Government could not get away by blaming the Opposition alone. It was equally, if not more, responsible, for it was the job of the Opposition to raise issues of concern to the people.

At that time, since almost all party leaders said that they were against disruption of Parliament, it looked like it would be back to business as usual in Parliament. The BAC would meet in the evening to discuss details for discussion on various issues, including Tehelka, the stock scam, WTO, and farmers' and weavers' suicides.

However, by evening, the Congress, represented by Mr. Madhavrao Scindia, took the stand that the Government must ``further clarify'' on the CBI inquiry against Ms. Gandhi, that the judicial inquiry into Tehelka and its terms of reference were ``not acceptable'', some concrete action was needed on Tehelka like the inquiry into alleged underworld connections of film producer, Mr. Bharat Shah, and that the Government cannot expect cooperation from the Opposition when it was virtually intimidating the Congress president on the basis of ``frivolous charges''.

Mr. Roop Chand Pal (CPI-M) supported concrete Government action on the Tehelka exposures, but the Samajwadi Party representative said that the people wanted the House to function.

The ``offer'' by Mr. Pramod Mahajan, Parliamentary Affairs Minister, that the Congress could raise the Tehelka issue and CBI inquiry against Ms. Gandhi and the Prime Minister would respond to both, did not impress the Congress. The meeting ended with the Speaker's appeal for end of the impasse.

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