BJP, NDA MPs not to take salary for second half of budget session

Accusing the Congress of paralysing parliament, BJP and NDA MPs on Wednesday night took the high moral ground by deciding not to take salary and allowances for 23 days of the resumed budget session that has been completely washed out due to protests by various parties.

Announcing the decision, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said it has been decided that the NDA MPs would be giving up their salary and other allowances for 23 days "for which parliament was not allowed to function by the Congress".

"The Congress is engaging in anti-democratic politics by stopping important bills from being passed, which is leading to criminal wastage of tax payers money," he told reporters at a hurriedly-called briefing.

Interestingly, Ananth Kumar singled out Congress for the trouble in parliament while there are other parties like AIADMK, TDP, YSR Congress and TRS who had disrupted parliament on various days citing different issues.

"It is people's money. MPs have been elected to work for the people. Since no work is being done we have decided not to take money," he said, adding that Congress was indulging in negative politics.

"The Congress has become intolerant of the people's mandate given to Narendra Bhai Modi. We will take the issue to the people," he said.

Both the government and the opposition have been blaming each other for the wash out of the session ever since it resumed on March 5 for the second part of the budget session.

While for the first few days the opposition including Congress had disrupted the house seeking to rake up issues like banking fraud, the protests took a different turn after YSR Congress and TDP brought no-confidence motions on the issue of special category status for Andhra Pradesh. Several other parties inlcluding Congress, TMC, CPI-M tabled similar notices.

However, the AIADMK, considered friendly to BJP, took the protest to a new level with its members in both the houses of parliament raking up the Cauvery Management Board issue and disrupting the proceedings without any break for over a fortnight.

--IANS

ps/vsc/vd