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Congress seeks notice against PM, walks out of LS

Congress members walked out of the Lok Sabha today following the refusal of Speaker G M C Balayogi to admit their privilege notice against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for withholding information about the resignation of two ministers from the House and announcing it outside last night.

Santosh Mohan Dev (Congress), who gave the privilege notice, said the House discussed the charge against the ministers and the prime minister replied to the debate, but he did not tell the House about the resignations.

Soon after the debate, the prime minister told the electronic media that he had received the resignations of the ministers, Dev said stressing that this amounted to a breach of privilege.

He wanted to know whether it was not a privilege of the House to know about the resignations when the prime minister was aware of it.

The prime minister simply put one resignation letter in the pocket and the other under his file, Dev said.

After listening to a few Congress members, the Speaker read out his observation that there was no privilege and he had already verified the matter with the prime minister.

Agitated Congress members wanted the Speaker to properly examine the question and get an explanation from the prime minister on the floor of the House. When the chair declined to accept their plea, the Congress members walked out of the House in protest.

In the Rajya Sabha too, a united Opposition demanded that Vajpayee take the House into confidence over the resignations of Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani and Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi.

Raising the issue during zero hour, Nilotpal Basu (Communist Party of India-Marxist) said that they came to know about these letters from the newspapers.

Since the House was in session they would like to know the facts.

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, who is also leader of the House, said Vajpayee had not made any statement in the House. What takes place in one House is not commented upon in the other House.

This, however, failed to pacify the Opposition members. Leader of the Opposition Mammohan Singh observed that it was appropriate to demand that the House be taken into confidence. Jaswant Singh assured the members that he would convey their views to the prime minister.

UNI

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