New Delhi: 2.02 pm: Parliament was adjourned till Friday over the CAG report on coal block allocation issue.
2.01 pm: Parliament proceedings resume.
1.05 pm: BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said that his party will not let any bill harming small traders pass in the Parliament. "I want to assure this to all the small traders in India," he said.
12.55 pm: Taking on the Opposition, Congress president Sonia Gandhi asked her party MPs to go on the offensive. "We don't need to be defensive. It is wrong. We must attack. They cannot take people for granted," she said.
12.50 pm: Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Thursday said that she was trying her best to run the House. "There seems to be a stalemate. Let's see when we can get over it. I wanted to have a meeting will all the parties. It's not a rejection. They have requested to have it later. I want it to happen as soon as possible," she said.
12:45 pm: In a bid to end the impasse in Parliament, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Thursday said that he will speak to all the opposition leaders to break deadlock.
12.33 pm: Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2 pm.
12.25 pm: The BJP on Thursday said that they will make their stand clear on Monday.
12.04: The Rajya Sabha adjourned till 12.30 pm.
12.02 pm: The Lok Sabha adjourned till 2 pm.
12.01 pm: Parliament proceedings resume.
11.45 am: Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari's meeting with floor leaders to end the deadlock in Parliament was inconclusive. The views of all the parties were taken to end the impasse.
11.40 am: Asserting that it has nothing to hide, the government on Thursday said it was prepared to discuss threadbare the CAG report on coal block allocation in Parliament and reply to the issues raised by the opposition.
"The government is already prepared to discuss anything they want. The Prime Minister has already said that. We are prepared to discuss the issues threadbare," Home Minister Shushil Kumar Shinde told reporters outside Parliament House.
Law Minister Salman Khurshid expressed the hope that the opposition will join in ensuring proper functioning of Parliament. "We want to give a reply to both the opposition and the country. We have nothing to hide," Khurshid said.
11.30 am: The Opposition boycotted the Speaker's mandatory meeting this morning.
11.20 am: Public Accounts Committee Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi on Thursday said that the BJP will attend the PAC meeting and take cognisance of the CAG report. "The Joint Parliamentary Committee was boycotted because of Congress's misbehaviour," he said.
11.02 am: The Parliament was adjourned till 12 noon over the CAG report on coal block allocation on Thursday. Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari has called for an all party meeting to end the impasse in the Upper House.
The BJP-Congress face-off on the issue of coal block allocation is set to derail Parliament again on Thursday. Leaders of the BJP Parliamentary Party are meeting in LK Advani's chambers to discuss their next move on the coal scam as well as the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G scam. Meanwhile, the BJP sources say that the reports of the party MPs resigning from the Lok Sabha are incorrect.
"Reports of BJP MP's resigning from the Lok Sabha are concocted, baseless and hypothetical. The BJP has not even decided on whether to continue or to quit the JPC on 2G," sources say.
After walking out of the JPC on Wednesday, the reports indicated that the BJP has threatened to resign from other parliamentary panels as well if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram do not depose before the JPC. BJP President Nitin Gadkari has also suggested that the party will resign from all parliamentary panels to put pressure on the government.
Constant disruptions in Parliament have led to losses of more than Rs 3 crore. The cost of running the Parliament for one day alone is Rs 1.7 crores.
Under pressure from the Opposition, the Prime Minister is said to be ready to speak on the issue of coal block allocation in Parliament and present his defence. While the Congress accuses the BJP of shying away from debate, the BJP says Parliament will not function till the Prime Minister resigns.
In his defence, the Prime Minister is expected to say that coal blocks were allocated in a transparent and appropriate manner through checks and balances without any favour to any company.
He may refer to the governments of Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Odisha and Jharkhand, saying they had opposed auction in 2005.
He is expected to hold the Opposition responsible for the delay in introducing competitive bidding for allocation of coal blocks. He may also label the CAG's calculations of the loss as inaccurate.
Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, V Narayansamy told CNN-IBN that the Prime Minister will reply on the charges against him in a Parliamentary debate.
"PM will reply to BJP on coal allocation issue. PM will participate in the debate. PM will answer all the points raised by BJP. But why BJP is shying away because their chief ministers didn't want coal allocation by auction mode," he said.
On the other hand, the BJP has declared a war on the government. In parliament they demanded the PM’s resignation over CAG report on coal allocations. On 2G, they walked out of the JPC meeting, threatening to quit if the PM and Finance Minister P Chidambaram do not depose before the parliamentary panel.
Speaking to CNN-IBN, BJP president Nitin Gandkari said, "Parliament will not function till the PM resigns. It’s wrong to say the NDA is not united. We are all for PM’s resignation. The only way out could be someone from UPA to talk to us. We won't attend the Joint Parliamentary Committee till PM is not summoned. Why should we attend if we won't be heard?"
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