New Delhi: With the deadlock continuing in Parliament between the Government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the CAG report on coal allocation, the Monsoon Session seems to be going down the drain.
The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha had to be adjourned for the third consecutive day on Thursday resulting in a loss of Rs 6 crore. Cost of running Parliament is Rs 25 lakh per hour. On a normal day, Parliament can function for eight hours which means the per day cost of running Parliament is Rs 2 crore. The Members of Parliament get Rs 2000 daily allowance for attending Parliament.
While the Congress is trying to break the logjam with Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde reaching out to Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, the BJP says it wants nothing less than the Prime Minister's resignation. "I hope that by Monday the matter will be resolved...I am trying to settle it by tomorrow (also). Let's see," said Shinde after talking to Swaraj.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal also said on Thursday that the government had invited the BJP for talks but they did not agree. "Do you think the answer to break the deadlock is to demand the resignation (of the Prime Minister)? They are not moving forward. Today we had invited them for talks. But they are probably not willing to talk. Perhaps they will be ready to talk on Monday," he told reporters outside Parliament.
UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi has also asked the party MPs to be on the offensive to end the impasse.
The meeting called by Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari on Thursday too saw the BJP and the Congress members throwing barbs at each other on the continuing deadlock in Parliament. While all agreed with Ansari's "bonafide" intentions of ending the impasse, they did not budge from their stated positions.
Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley is understood to have stated that Parliament is also about accountability and this role cannot be jettisoned by the government. The Congress leaders, however, said Parliamentary practices were going downhill and put the blame on the Opposition's attitude.
A meeting to end the impasse in the Lok Sabha called by the Speaker Meira Kumar was boycotted by the NDA. The Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also stayed away from it.
Meanwhile, the NDA in a meeting chaired by its Working Chairperson LK Advani decided to continue with its demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation on the coal block issue. The BJP, however, is expected to attend a PAC on the CAG's coal report on Thursday.
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