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Saturday, Jul 24, 2004

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NDA threatens to quit parliamentary panels

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JULY 23. The Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, has threatened that the National Democratic Alliance would withdraw from all parliamentary committees to protest against the "confrontationist attitude" of the Manmohan Singh Government.

He also alleged that the Prime Minister was "not in control" of his Government and "unable to exercise his authority," citing Dr. Singh's inability or unwillingness to make a statement on his "missing" Cabinet colleague, Shibu Soren, against whom a court in Jharkhand has issued non-bailable arrest warrants.

To meet President

On July 25 an NDA delegation would meet the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, to request him to "advise" the Prime Minister to sack Mr. Soren, Mr. Advani said, adding that the Opposition had no option but to go to the people and seek their support to compel the Government to govern in accordance with the law of the land.

Mr. Advani was addressing the press today after the Parliament was adjourned till August 16 when it will meet for the second part of the Budget session.

The immediate provocation was the confrontation between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Speaker in the Lok Sabha today when BJP members wanted the Speaker to allow Mr. Advani to speak first even as the Speaker was addressing the House.

However, Mr. Advani preferred not to respond to questions on why his MPs refused to listen to the Chair and insisted that he be allowed to speak first. Instead, he said that the Opposition was well within its rights to demand an explanation or a statement from the Prime Minister on the Soren issue.

"What do we get instead? A condemnation of our stand is read out in the Lok Sabha by the Leader of the House. This is unprecedented," he said.

`Will not resign'

Asked whether NDA MPs were thinking of resigning from the House since they did not want to attend it or participate in its deliberations or committees, his answer was a "no."

He also rejected the charge that the NDA was not interested in raising issues such as farmers' suicides, the floods and drought affecting different parts of the country or the issue of Indians taken hostage by a group in Iraq.

He said the Government was not interested in these issues although debates on some of these topics were agreed upon, listed on the agenda papers but could not be held as the Opposition forced adjournments or walked out. Mr. Advani insisted that "all we demanded" was a statement from the Prime Minister.

He was asked by reporters why the Jharkhand Government (ruled by the BJP) had given a clean chit to Mr. Soren just a few days ago on the basis of which the Home Minister had answered a question in the Rajya Sabha. "That matter was over in the Rajya Sabha,'' the BJP leader, Sushma Swaraj, said.

Another meeting planned

It seems that after the NDA meeting this morning, the deputy leader of the BJP, V.K. Malhotra, went to the Speaker and told him that the NDA had decided that the "House will not run." The Government and the Speaker have expressed their anger that the NDA has assumed it alone would decide when and how the Parliament should function.

At yet another NDA meeting tomorrow the leaders will decide whether they should participate in parliamentary committees. At the press conference today several NDA leaders were present, including Ananth Geethe (Shiv Sena), Braj Kishore Tripathi (Biju Janata Dal) and M. Jagannath (Telugu Desam Party).

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