Parliament deadlock: Speaker calls LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj

Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar today spoke to BJP parliamentary party leader LK Advani and leader of opposition in the Lower House Sushma Swaraj to find a way to end the logjam in Parliament.

Sources said Kumar phoned Advani and asked him what should be done to end the deadlock in Parliament. The BJP leader apparently told her that she should preferably discuss the matter with the government and ask it how the matter can be resolved.

The BJP has maintained that the responsibility of running Parliament smoothly lies with the government. It is adamant about its demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the second-generation (2G) mobile telephony spectrum allocation, Commonwealth Games and Adarsh Housing Society scams.

Kumar also spoke to Swaraj and discussed the matter.

Government has indicated that it wants Parliament to function but is not agreeable to formation of a JPC.

BJP and other opposition parties insist that parliamentary public accounts committee (PAC) does not have the powers to fully investigate the 2G mobile bandwidth scam and a JPC should be constituted.

Two all-party meetings had been called by the government to end the impasse but no solution could be found. Leader of the House in Lok Sabha Pranab Mukherjee had told the opposition parties that he would discuss their demand with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and get back to them.

However, the opposition did not get a reply from Mukherjee.