There seems to be no end to the logjam in Parliament with the government refusing to yield to the united Opposition demand for "censuring" the hate speech without naming the erring lady minister.
In a joint statement, leaders of nine parties accused the government of creating the current impasse in Rajya Sabha and appealed to it "to accept a joint resolution condemning the attempts to outrage our Constitution by making inflammatory speeches aimed at dividing the syncretic, socio-cultural mosaic of our country's rich diversity."
Government source, however, said there was no question of accepting a contentious resolution. They said a resolution generally conveyed the sense of the House and should be issue-based and not individual centric.
The Opposition was referring to a "motion of censure" that they had proposed in the business advisory committee (BAC) meeting to condemn comments by a member of the union council of ministers as not acceptable.
"Unfortunately, we have been informed now that the government does not accept our reasonable proposal," they said in a 2-page statement. The parties that include Congress, Samajwadi Party, BSP, Trinamul Congress, DMK, Janata Dal(U) and Left noted that they were a majority in the Rajya Sabha and yet Prime Minister Modi had not heeded to their concern and strong objection to the outrageous remarks made by a minister of state that warranted her outright removal from the ministry.
"Despite this reasonability and cooperation extended by the entire opposition in Rajya Sabha, the government continued to remain obdurate and highly unreasonable" leaving them with no option but to continue protest that "such remarks aimed at sharpening communal polarization in the country for narrow partisan, political and electoral gains is not acceptable," the joint statement added.
The Rajya Sabha was earlier adjourned by deputy chairman PJ Kurien for the fourth day without any work, asking the Opposition and the government to sort out the matter and come back on Monday. The entire Opposition, barring AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal and some small parties, walked out of the Lok Sabha after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal, with the
Congress and Trinamul Congress members putting black band on their mouths to symbolise the government's gag of their voice.
Congress MPs (led by Rahul Gandhi), as well as those of Trinamul wore black bands to protest what they called curbing the Opposition's voice in Parliament. "They are not allowing basic democratic processes inside the House. The attitude is they don't want people to be heard inside the House We are going to fight it....those at the helm of power don't want our voices heard inside the House," Rahul said.
In his appeal in the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Prime Minister urged the House to get back to its business as Sadhvi had already apologised. He tried to be emotive urging the Opposition to be "generous" to the minister as she is a first-time MP and comes from a rural background. "We should move ahead with our work of taking the nation ahead," he said.
Venkaiah Naidu's appeal was couched in condemnation of the Congress leading the Parliament blockade, asserting that the first-time MP was being targeted because the Opposition was afraid that she was influencing people in a big way. Though Delhi BJP cancelled her two public meetings in the Capital in the last two days, Venkaiah Naidu declared that she would continue to campaign as and when required.
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