She may have given in to pressure after the Opposition disrupted the first day of Parliament’s monsoon session on July 21, demanding her resignation.
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The Rajya Sabha saw heated exchanges between the opposition and treasury benches, primarily over the modalities for a discussion on the Lalit Modi controversy, with members of the Congress, Left and other parties insisting “no resignation, no discussion“.
“I will disclose the name of the leader on the floor of the house”, she said in another tweet.
But a veteran BJP leader, lawmaker Shanta Kumar, broke ranks, calling for an ethics committee to be set up to investigate some of the scandals embroiling the BJP leaders. On Wednesday, it accused the leader of the state of Uttarkhand of changing government policy on granting liquor licenses to make profits.
Terming the government as “thick skinned”, Azad said that this is the first time after Independence where government has not taken any action despite the fact that ministers and chief ministers are involved in cases and agitation is going on all over the country against it.
The entire BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is solidly standing behind besieged Swaraj who is accused of helping former Indian Premier League (IPL) chief Lalit Modi of procuring British travel documents on what she claims on humanitarian grounds.
In this sitting of Parliament, the government’s main goal is to ease the passage of the biggest overhaul of taxes since independence in 1947. The Rajya Sabha too witnessed ruckus throughout the day stalling business as the opposition pressed for the resignations of Sushma Swaraj, Raje and Chouhan. Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), however, asserted that the Vyapam issue was not just restricted to one state as people linked to it had died even outside Madhya Pradesh under mysterious circumstances.
A move to break the three-day-old deadlock in Parliament was a non-starter with Congress refusing to participate in an all-party meeting called by Leader of Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley yesterday.
As Speaker Mahajan tried to conduct the Question Hour, the members started raising slogans, forcing her to adjourn the house till noon.
With the logjam in both Houses of Parliament over the Lalit Modi controversy, Vyapam scam and other issues likely to continue, the government has decided to mount a major counter offensive over graft allegations against Congress dispensations and Chief Ministers in states like Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Kerala. However, they continued to show placards.
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“Venture Energy Technology Private Limited, whose project was revived by Virbhadra Singh… and after a while, the owner of the company gave Rs.1.5 crore as unsecured loan to the chief minister’s wife and Rs.2.4 crore to the chief minister”, he said.
