Price rise disrupts both Houses
The deadlock in Parliament over price rise issue continued on Thursday with a determined Opposition, including supporting parties like SP and RJD, stalling both the Houses and almost no business could be transacted for the third consecutive working day of the ongoing session. Both the Right and the Left wings of the Opposition took the protest even outside the Parliament.
A day after Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar rejected the Opposition demand for debating the issue as an Adjournment Motion that entails voting, the BJP took the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan urging President Pratibha Patil to intervene in the matter.
The Opposition parties, other than the NDA, led by the Left leaders chose to stage a dharna at the main entrance of the Lok Sabha. Demanding a rollback in the fuel prices hike, the CPI(M) and CPI, along with the RJD, the JD(S), the AIADMK and the TDP wanted a discussion under rules which have a specific provision for voting.
In the Lok Sabha, Opposition MPs led by Ms Sushma Swaraj demanded a discussion on the price rise issue under a rule that entails voting.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar urged the Opposition to let the Question Hour proceed, but Ms Swaraj retorted that the only issue that would be discussed in the House was the price rise.
Failing to restore order, Ms Kumar first adjourned the proceedings till 12 noon. However, with the pandemonium continuing when they reassembled, the House was adjourned for the day.
In the Rajya Sabha too, where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was present during the din, was earlier adjourned till 12 noon and then for the day.
The BJP submitted a memorandum to President Patil against price rise issue, along with nearly 10 crores signatures of “affected” people.
The party sought her intervention in finding a solution after talking to the UPA government.
Senior Bhartiya Janata Party leaders, including party chief Nitin Gadkari, parliamentary party chairman L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Swaraj and her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley, led party MPs and other senior leaders to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to present the memorandum.
Later, BJP chief said though the government had promised to bring prices under control within 100 days of coming to power but it had been an all round failure.
“The common man is suffering because of this. The basic reason of price rise is the wrong economic policy of the UPA government. We have urged the president to intervene and find solution after talking to the government,” Mr Gadkari said.
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