Stalling Parliament is also part of democracy, Sushma says

IANS

New Delhi, 07 Sep 2012: Seeking to blame the government for the partially washed out monsoon session, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday blamed corruption for the lost session, and asserted that stalling parliament was also a form of democracy.

 

"I would like to remind the prime minister, when he was leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, they had stalled parliament over the Tehelka issue. Even over the coffin scam, they stalled parliament and called us coffin thieves," said Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj.

 

"Not allowing parliament to function is also a form of democracy like any other form," she contended, reacting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement that the BJP’s stalling of parliament was a "negation" of democracy.

 

Sushma Swaraj also defended her party’s stand of not allowing a debate without cancellation of allocated coal blocks, saying the past experiences have shown debates make no difference.

 

"They asked us to hold debate either under an adjournment motion, rule 184, or rule 93," she said.

 

Under adjournment motion, debate is taken up after adjourning question hour, followed by voting by voice vote. In discussion under rule 184 in Lok Sabha, there is a voting following debate as well. Rule 193 is debate without voting.

 

"Debate under 193 would mean a ’talkout’ by the government and walkout by opposition. If we would have taken debate under (rule) 184, they would have won because they have numbers. Numbers however do not give the license to loot the country," she said.

 

Backing her, her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley called irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks a "textbook case of crony capitalism."

 

"The prime minister says time has been wasted and this issue could have been discussed. Sad part is that ending corruption was nowhere in his statement," he said.

 

"We blame corruption for the loss of the session," he said.

 

Jaitley also said that loss of this session will help in cleaning up the corruption in allocation of natural resources.

 

"By disrupting parliament, we have given out a message to the country. When we disrupted parliament three years back on 2G scam, the telecom sector was cleaned. Now, the country is faced by the issue, how to cleanup the entire process of allocation of resources," he said.

 

"UPA (United Progressive Alliance) is a regime committed to kleptocracy (rule by thieves)," he added.

 

Parliament was adjourned sine die Friday, after a month-long monsoon session that witnessed 13 days of disruption in the 20-day session.

 

The BJP has been demanding prime minister’s resignation as they have alleged that the allocations were made when he was coal minister.