We want Parliament to go on: Mulayam Yadav

New Delhi: The government and the largest Opposition party in both Houses, the Congress, traded charges accusing each other of harming the country’s interests. Opposition parties other than the Left did not appear to be seen as siding with the Congress but maintained their opposition to the government.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Congress was using the External Affairs Minister issue as a façade to stall the passage of the Goods and Services Tax Bill in the current session. Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad hit back saying the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government had made “so many mistakes in such little time” that it was looking for excuses to blame them on the Congress.

The government, he said, had made no serious effort to end the impasse, with barely three more days of the session left.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying his party wanted Parliament to function but his silence was to blame for the logjam.

“He praises the Chief Ministers. He completely ignores the fact that the future of



thousands of people in Madhya Pradesh has been destroyed by his Chief Minister. He completely ignores the fact that there is a business relationship between a criminal and his Chief Minister of Rajasthan,” Mr. Gandhi said.

Earlier in the day, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav stood up in the Lok Sabha urging the Speaker to put the House in order. “We want Parliament to go on,” Mr. Yadav told Sumitra Mahajan as Congress MPs were protesting in the well of the House during question hour, after their adjournment motion was rejected by her. The Speaker called a meeting with leaders of the opposition parties and the government at Mr. Yadav’s request where he reiterated that the House should run.

A Minister claimed that the Congress stood isolated on its demand for resignations first and discussions later. However, Ram Gopal Yadav, the Samajwadi Party leader in the Rajya Sabha, said there was no question of breaking ranks with the Opposition on the issue of Parliament logjam. “All Netaji [Mulayam Singh Yadav] said to the Speaker was that we all want the House to run. Who doesn’t want that?” he said.