The senior BJP leader said, “As far as the government (is concerned), we have not done anything wrong, nothing illegal, nothing immoral has been done by any of our ministers”.
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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday accused the Congress of “petty political interest” and said it was not allowing discussion on the Dinanagar terror attack in parliament. NCP’s Tariq Anwar slammed the government for not initiating any dialogue with the Opposition to address the issues raised by it. The meeting was convened by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan in the wake of the Congress protests and unruly scenes in the House on Monday. The government has rejected the opposition’s demand.
He asked Jaitley and BJP “not to give patronizing sermons to the Congress but to collectively reflect and apologise for their own conduct while in opposition.”.
Hoping that “some wisdom will dawn” on the government over the weekend, he said that if this happens, then Parliament could function smoothly. They may be upset with the electorate for the 2014 verdict. Simultaneously, the Finance Minister’s explanatory note on the Goods and Services Act titled “Dissent or Disruption – The Congress Party’s Position on GST” seemed designed to heckle the principal Opposition party.
Earlier in the day, in a Facebook post, Jaitley held the Congress responsible for disrupting parliament, saying “its obstructionist tendencies inflict an economic injury on the country”. “The Congress is afraid of this… they don’t want success of the government in parliament”, Sitharaman said. Both the Houses of Parliament have not been able to function with the opposition parties reiterating their demand for External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s resignation over her alleged help to former IPL chief Lalit Modi.
There are issues like price rise and hostages in Libya and people of those areas (representatives) are very much concerned and they want to raise those issue in Parliament, Naidu pointed out. The confusion created by the Congress is prevailing and people of India are being denied a meaningful parliament session.
Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said business should be adjourned and prime minister should come in the house. “Even Sushma Swaraj has also said she is ready to make a statement (in Parliament)”, Naidu said.
The Congress hit back.
“We are not interested in mere photo-op, tea and sandwiches”.
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Rejecting the opposition’s charge the government had not reached out to them, Naidu said he had called a meeting of various parties on Friday morning as well but Congress backed out at the last moment and added that he was looking to call a meeting on Monday.
