Congress walks out of Lok Sabha agenda meet

New Delhi: The Opposition Congress on Thursday walked out of the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC), held in Speaker Sumitra Mahajan’s chamber, alleging that the Central government was adopting an “undemocratic” approach and bulldozing the proceedings in the House.

The meeting of the BAC to decide on the Lok Sabha’s agenda for next week was held Thursday afternoon, where leaders from a number of parties were present.

The Lower House has been paralysed since March 5, when Parliament met after a recess, due to protest by various parties on issues like PNB scam, special status for Andhra Pradesh and Cauvery dispute. Amid the din, the Finance Bill and the Appropriation bills were Wednesday passed by the House without discussion and two other bills were also pushed on Thursday by the government.

Unhappy with the passage of bills without any discussion, Congress leader and deputy chief whip of the party in the Lower House K.C. Venugopal on Thursday stormed out of the BAC meeting and accused the government of bypassing all democratic traditions and customs of the House. He alleged that the government was trying to avoid discussion on the PNB scam issue.

“The government was hell bent on passing bills without any discussion, and is neither interested in amicably settling the issues in the House in a democratic manner,” Mr Venugopal said.

The Congres leader said the government is making efforts to avoid any sort of discussion on the PNB scam, and is passing all the bills without any discussion amidst the din in Lok Sabha. Allocating time for more bills would only help the government to pass them without any discussion, he said.