Congress persists in its protests, RS slated for a washout this week

Left parties, JD(U), RJD and NCP joined the Congress in boycotting the house today

With the government making no attempt to broker peace with the Opposition, the Congress "dharna" continued into the second day on Wednesday in the Parliament precincts. The Left parties, JD(U), RJD and NCP joined the Congress in boycotting the House and protesting against 25 Congress MPs being suspended for five days. Congress president Sonia Gandhi made it clear the protests will continue on Thursday and stated categorically she was not aware of any proposal from the government to end the logjam. Congress insiders say there is no question of any rapprochement this week for sure. Some efforts had been initially made by the senior leaders of the SP and BJD, but there was evidently no headway.

While the Lok Sabha functioned with the majority of parties staying away from the proceedings (barring the AIADMK, BJD and TRS), Rajya Sabha proceedings were washed out for the entire day. While Congress floor managers concede they are surprised at no substantive efforts by the treasury benches to reach out to the government and get the House up and running, they admit that they are not perturbed. "After all, it is in the government's interests to have Parliament function and get its Bill cleared," says a Congress senior leader. He also admits that for the Congress it had become virtually a point of no return. It had publicly stated, "no discussion without resignation" and had upped the ante; so there was no question of climbing down on it or agreeing to a discussion with the prime minister's intervention, a move that was reportedly being proposed by the government.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi told reporters, "We have not liked the Lok Sabha Speaker's decision on suspension of Congress MPs but we respect her position."

The purported offensive by the government has only managed to cement the disjointed Opposition ranks. Even the TMC boycotted the Lok Sabha for the second consecutive day. RJD MP Jai Prakash Yadav said, "We will continue the fight against this (suspension order). We will take the fight to the street."  SP leader Dharmendra Yadav said, "We were trying to make a statement in the Lok Sabha but we are not allowed to do so. So we walked out of the House".