The Hindu : National : Somnath restarts morning meetings

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Wednesday, Nov 29, 2006
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Somnath restarts morning meetings

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI : Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has restarted the practice of daily meetings with political leaders in his chamber before the House session begins, signalling some kind of rapprochement between the Opposition parties and the presiding officer.

At the end of the monsoon session, the practice was discontinued, after the Bharatiya Janata Party stayed away from the meetings and the Congress leaders charged that the BJP routinely went back on agreements reached at the meetings. The BJP then announced it had no confidence in the Speaker. Matters came to a head on August 8, when the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in a letter to the Speaker, said that respect ought to be commanded and "not demanded," and party leaders passed a resolution a day later approving "every word" of the letter.

That episode came to an end after Mr. Vajpayee called on the Speaker at the end of the monsoon session. Since then the BJP had not said a word about its earlier threat of moving a no-confidence resolution against the Speaker.On Tuesday, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Priyaranjan Dasmunsi told reporters that he requested the Speaker to re-start the practice as it helped in the smooth functioning of the Houseand the Speaker obliged.

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