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The stalemate in the Parliament between the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continued even after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited senior leaders of the main opposition party for talks to break the logjam. Soon after the meeting started on Wednesday afternoon, BJP leaders demanded that defence minister AK Antony must have misled the house with his statement on the recent killing of five Indian Army soldiers at the border.
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, initiated the discussion with the Prime Minister and demanded that Antony must correct his statement on the issue in the house to allow Parliament to disruptions in Parliament.
“Defence Minister's statement about killing of 5 Indian jawans is contrary to Press release issued by Defence wing on the same subject. Defence wing statement categorically accuses Pakistan army for the incident. However, Defence Minister told both Houses of Parliament that ambush was carried out by some persons dressed in Pakistan army uniform.
Defence wing statement says this action is a likely consequence of frustrations of the terrorist's tanzeems and Pakistan army.
This is missing from Defence Minister’s statement. We wanted Defence Minister to clarify on this to the Parliament,” tweeted Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, soon after coming out of the meeting. Defence minister AK Antony was also present in the meeting along with Prime Minister when the senior leaders of BJP came for discussion.
Swaraj further said that the union government had introduced the Food security Bill in Lok Sabha and the BJP had supported introduction of the Bill. “When we raised issue of border security, Cong MPs came to the well and disrupted proceedings. Then House was adjourned. The Congress spokesperson has said that politics is being played on the dead bodies. They are not dead bodies, the dead soldiers were martyrs” Swaraj tweeted.
During the course of the meeting, Prime Minister also wanted the BJP leaders to support the land boundary agreement with Bangladesh which would allow exchange of enclaves between the two countries. However, BJP leaders categorically stated that they will not support the union government on the issue because they feel that the agreement was in favour of Bangladesh and union government was not extracting enough from the Bangladesh government. The government needs to amend the constitution with a two-third majority to implement the agreement with Bangladesh.
The agreement between the two countries can only be ratified through a Constitution Amendment Bill because it involves exchange of territories. The Bill needs to be passed by a majority in each House of the Parliament, no less than two-thirds of the members present and voting. Bangladeshi foreign minister, Dipu Moni, had also met senior leaders of the BJP in July to support the Bill in Parliament.
