Jaitley salve helps Govt, Congress clear Rajya Sabha logjam

The week-long impasse in the Rajya Sabha over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged comments against his predecessor Manmohan Singh and former Vice-President Hamid Ansari ended on Wednesday after a clarification by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is also the leader of the Upper House.

The Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Rajya Sabha met on Wednesday morning, and the Centre told the meeting that Jaitley was ready to give a clarification in Parliament on the speeches made by Modi during the Gujarat poll campaign.

The Opposition has been insisting that Modi should himself clarify his statement. Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu took the initiative to bring about peace between the Opposition and the government. At the BAC meeting, the Congress finally agreed to the Centre’s proposal.

Jaitley said the Opposition on several occasions last week had raised the issue of the Prime Minister’s speech during the recent elections to the Assemblies in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. “Many statements had been made on all sides during the elections. We don’t want the stalemate to continue as a result of this. Let me categorically state that the Prime Minister in his statements or speeches did not question nor did he mean to question the commitment to this nation of either Singh or Ansari,” Jaitley said.

He said that any such perception was completely erroneous. “We hold these leaders in high esteem as also their commitment to this nation,” he added.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the Congress dissociated itself from any statement made against the personality of the Prime Minister. “If during the elections (recent Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh), any member of our party gave such a statement that was against the stature of the Prime Minister, then our party dissociates itself from any such statement and we would not want any word to be said against the stature of the Prime Minister,” Azad said.

Later, talking to reporters, Azad said the Congress did not succumb to any pressure. “Yes, we did not want to continue this logjam for a longer period. We have come to the conclusion that the government was feeling happier with this impasse in Parliament. So many things are happening; we are living in a dynamic world, and every day, different issues come up before the country and before Parliament. We decided that we should not confine ourselves to one issue and hammer it in time and again for days and weeks together,” he said.

The House, however, witnessed disruptions and adjournments on Wednesday morning as the Opposition objected to the statement by Minister of State Anant Kumar Hegde that the BJP wanted to remove the word ‘secularism’ from the Constitution.

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