TNI Bureau: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh slammed BJP for disrupting the proceedings of Parliament. He said that there were important issues needed to be debated in both the Houses, but the Opposition paralysed the Monsoon session over Coalgate.
Talking to reporters outside Parliament on last day of the session today, Dr Singh said that India is going through many problems like ethnic violence, terrorism, naxalism and these issues should have been discussed in the parliament.
Avoiding the Coalgate issue, he said that the world is grappled with economic crisis and the parliament should have discussed such issue. He appealed to the countrymen to reject the BJP, which is not allowing the government to run the parliament smoothly.
“This is negation of democracy. Violation of norms of the Parliament and constitution that we have understood”, he said.
Dr Singh said that he has a great respect for CAG. Hence, its findings should be discussed. The PM broke his silence after both the houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die today following the uproar over the coal blocks allocation scam and reservation in job promotions for SC/ST.
The session ended with no discussion and little work. Around Rs 10 crore losses occurred due to continuous disruption and uproar in the Parliament. 80% of work hours were lost and six out of 31 bills were passed in this session.
Late, the opposition BJP held the press conference to make their stand clear before the media over Coalgate. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj lashed out at the government for casual response on the matter.
She said that BJP will take the fight to the streets. “We will plan how to take this issue to the people in the villages”, she said.
The core group of the party will meet on September 13 and decide how to take the issue to the villages.
Backing her, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley questioned the PM’s statement as the coal scam was not there. He said that PM told the issues of ethnic violence and terrorism, but the country is facing the issue how to clean up the entire process of allocation of natural resources.
He asked why the government is blaming the CMs of the states, whereas the CAG report said that the PMO had approved the coal block allocation on July 25, 2005.
Also the audit report said that all the ministers and businessmen connected to the UPA were allotted to the coal fields.
“We asked them to cancel allotments, they didn’t agree to that. UPA is a regime that is committed to cryptocracy. Let the centre have a commission of inquiry where PM has to depose, all issues will be covered”, he said.