If Opposition derails session will rake up UPA scams: BJP

On day one of the two-week monsoon session, the government stumped the Opposition, by agreeing to suspend regular business and discuss issues related to former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi in Rajya Sabha. Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) had submitted a notice to chairman Hamid Ansari to suspend business under Rule 267. Lok Sabha was adjourned in memory of BJP MP Dilip Singh Bhuria of Ratlam who died last month.

Finance minister and leader of House Arun Jaitley in Rajya Sabha called for a full-fledged debate. The Opposition then demanded the resignations of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje and MP CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan. "Debate in Parliament cannot substitute an investigation. First action (resignation) and then instituting a credible and high-level investigation and then debate," said CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. His demand was echoed by Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma.

Azad had convinced the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samajwadi Party (SP), JD(U) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) that the time was right to strike the BJP. Sushma Swaraj is known to share a good equation with these parties due to her socialist background.

Congress deputy leader Anand Sharma took up a motion to suspend business in the Rajya Sabha to discuss Swaraj's role in securing the British travel papers for Modi. When Jaitley agreed to a debate, the Opposition said: "First resignation and then discussion", forcing an adjournment. Deputy chairman Prof PJ Kurian sought a vote on the motion. Neither Sharma nor Pramod Tiwari got up to move the motion. Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agrawal, the third mover of the motion, said no debate can take place until all those helping an absconder do not resign.

Union telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused the Congress of "shifting its stand... because the debate would have exposed that their charges were baseless." He said the Congress should not have raked up the case of Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje signing an affidavit to get permanent residency for Modi in Britain, as the move broke 65 years of consensus of not raising state issues in Parliament, with the exception of human right violations, communal riots and atrocities on women.

Sharma said the Congress was using the same rules that the BJP had used while in Opposition during 10 years of the UPA regime. "FIRs should have been registered against Swaraj and Raje."

He said the government was protecting Modi, who has 14 cases registered against him by the enforcement directorate.

Prasad said if Vyapam scam and IPL are being discussed then "why not the case of (Himachal CM) Virbhadra Singh, bribes taken by the Congress governments in Goa and Assam, Kerala CM Chandy's cases and accounts forged by Robert Vadra." He said the BJP will also raise issues like Union Carbide chief Anderson being helped by then Congress chief minister Arjun Singh to prevent his arrest over the Bhopal gas tragedy and defreezing of the British accounts of Quattrochi wanted in the Bofors scam if the Congress does not desist from reckless allegations.

Day one showed no meaningful business can be achieved in the next 23 days with 32 bills waiting to be passed. Six bills are pending in the Rajya Sabha, while five bills are yet to be introduced in the Lok Sabha.

Seventeen bills, including important ones like Lokpal and Lokayuktas, Benami Transaction (Prohibition), are yet to be introduced in both the houses.

When finance minister agreed to a debate on the Lalit Modi issue in the Rajya Sabha, the Opposition was stumped. It was then that there was an uproar calling for the resignations of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan CM vasundhara Raje and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Chauhan.