Me first Samajwadis and Congress stall House proceedings

Me first Samajwadis and Congress stall House proceedings
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI, NOV 21: Competition between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party to score brownie points gave the Vajpayee government enough reasons not to be unduly worried tomorrow when an adjournment motion on the plight of farmers is being taken up.

No business could be transacted the whole of today in the Lok Sabha, thanks to some dogged insistence by Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party that it begiven the first chance to speak on the issue on the ground that its notice for the adjournment motion reached the Speaker's office first.

The Congress argued that Sonia Gandhi should be given precedence as she was the Leader of the Opposition. But with no meeting ground between the two, members of both parties rushed to the well of the House disrupting proceedings.

Even though the government has agreed to the debate, to come up at 2 p.m., it is still not certain whether the SP will allow the motion to be taken up tomorrow. Keen to be seen as the champion of the farmers, the party made it clear that it will not let go of the opportunity to put the government in the dock.

In fact, the SP made its intentions clear about what it would do tomorrow. Said SP General Secretary Amar Singh: ``All our 25 Lok Sabha members have given notices today and we're sure that we'll be asked to initiate the discussion. We'll not leave our issue for the sake of Congress, which is shedding crocodile tears in the name of farmers.''

Sonia Gandhi told reporters that the issue she had wanted to raise through an adjournment motion concerned the farmers, who comprised 70 per cent of the country's population. ``The plight of the farmers is very grave but all of you know I wasn't allowed to raise the issue,'' she said.

The party's representatives at the BAC, Madhavrao Scindia and P R Dasmunshi, are learnt to have complained to the Speaker about the ``unruly'' behaviour of the SP members. ``The Leader of the Opposition occupies a particular place in Parliament,'' Scindia told reporters later, adding that ``all the opposition parties cooperated with us, barring one.''

The business advisory committee met after two adjournments in the morning where the government spoke of its readiness to agree to a debate under the most potent parliamentary weapon to target the government. Here too, the SP representative stuck to the point that it should be allowed to initiate the debate on the motion when it comes up tomorrow but Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi citing rules said that the question would be decided by a ballot.