Rahul Gandhi
NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha discussion on the Budget continued to be mired in the standoff between govt and the opposition, with LoP Rahul Gandhi’s insistence on being allowed to raise a few issues and govt’s refusal to heed his plea stalling the transaction of business for the sixth consecutive day on Monday. Amid the standoff, opposition netas Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav accused the govt of avoiding a discussion on the Budget because it feared questions about the Indo-US trade deal and its impact on farmers, even as BJP claimed the opposition did not want the budget debated. Rahul, SP’s Akhilesh, TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee and DMK’s T R Baalu met the Speaker to find a solution to the logjam after the House was adjourned for the day. Later, Rahul said he would be allowed to raise some issues on Tuesday, after which the Budget would be discussed. Opposition is also seeking revocation of suspension of its MPs. On Monday, when presiding officer Sandhya Roy did not allow Rahul to speak and called Shashi Tharoor to start the Budget discussion, the opposition raised a protest. Rahul said the Speaker had committed that he would be allowed to speak and the Chair was going back on its word. But parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju contested his claim as “not being 100% correct”. Rijiju said he was present in the meeting of the Speaker and K C Venugopal, and it was decided that Rahul should spell out the issues he wanted to raise so that if he made any allegations against the Speaker, the latter could reply. “There was no commitment that only the LoP would be allowed to speak,” he said. Rahul told reporters that his issues include not allowing the LoP and the opposition to speak on the motion of thanks while a BJP MP was allowed to speak “wild stuff”, and suspension of MPs. He said the opposition is disturbed by the “idea floated” that the PM faced a threat inside LS. “The PM was scared of coming to the House not because of members, but because of what I was saying,” he said, referring to his announcement Wednesday that he would give the book of Army chief M M Naravane on Chinese aggression to the PM if he came to the House. Meanwhile, the opposition walked out of RS after Chairman C P Radhakrishnan did not allow LoP Mallikarjun Kharge to talk about Rahul not being allowed to speak in the LS. Casting doubts about the govt’s intent to run the House, Akhilesh and Rahul said the opposition is keen on a discussion because of “dheel” in the trade deal given by govt to US.
