NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will on Thursday next provide clarifications sought by members in Parliament on the statement he made on the Volcker issue before he left for Moscow last week.

The Volcker controversy once again stalled both Houses of Parliament for some time on Thursday.

The Rajya Sabha witnessed two adjournments in the post-lunch session when Mool Chand Meena (Congress) raised the matter of the former Prime Minister's "family member" reportedly being involved in the food-for-oil scam. He was backed by Ambika Soni and Anand Sharma (both Congress) who waved copies of a weekly magazine that made the "revelation" about the association of Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee's close family member with the son of the former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussain, in the scam. The two wanted to know whether the government would order an inquiry into this.

Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan, who was in the chair, did not allow any discussion as no prior notice on this had been given and adjourned the House.

When it reassembled, members of the Opposition raised newspaper reports that claimed that the Enforcement Directorate had evidence of the Congress and the former Union Minister, Natwar Singh "stashing away" Rs. 528 crores from the `Oilgate scam' in foreign bank accounts. This resulted in noisy scenes. When repeated attempts by the Chair failed to pacify the members, he adjourned the House again.

While an echo of the Volcker controversy was heard in the Rajya Sabha in the pre-lunch session, the Lok Sabha witnessed a brief walkout by the Opposition demanding the resignation of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members attempted to elicit clarifications from the Prime Minister on the Volcker Report in the Rajya Sabha, they encountered stiff resistance from Dipankar Mukherjee (Communist Party of India-Marxist), who asked: "Will Volcker be debated every day? And all other major issues will be kept aside every day just to talk on the Volcker report!"

However, in the Lok Sabha, Vijay Kumar Malhotra (BJP) was allowed to raise the matter. Drawing attention to newspaper reports, he said, amid protests from the ruling benches: "It is now clear that the Congress is corrupt and Sonia Gandhi should resign." As efforts to draw a response from the Leader of the House, Pranab Mukherjee, proved futile, the Opposition decided to stage a walkout.

Later when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi's attention was drawn to the remarks made by the Congress MPs in the Rajya Sabha, he said that as of now there was no thinking in the government on changing the terms of reference of the Pathak Inquiry Authority.

"If the situation so develops, the government can always think about what to do," he said. "If the fish is small, why bother to spread the net; if the fish is big, we will certainly think about it."

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