Upset with Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, the National Democratic Alliance on Wednesday decided to boycott his meetings with political parties during the current session to protest against his 'double standards' in dealing with the Opposition.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance will, however, attend the House, deputy leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Vijay Kumar Malhotra told reporters after a meeting of the NDA in New Delhi.
"There are double standards with which the House is being run. There is a disregard of the Opposition," he said.
The BJP, which led the NDA in a one-day boycott of the Lok Sabha over the style of functioning of the Speaker in the last session, is upset again with him, this time for not allowing it to raise objections in the House over the arrest of its chief Rajnath Singh in Singur.
"We will boycott his all-party meetings as well as the business advisory committee meetings until justice is done to us," Malhotra said after NDA leaders met to decide their next move on the Speaker's conduct of the House.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani chaired the meeting attended among others by the Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav, Shiv Sena leaders Manohar Joshi and Anant Geete, BJP leaders Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj, S S Ahulwalia and Malhotra and the Shiromani Akali Dal's Sukhdev Singh Libra.
"The situation will have been different in the House had any of the United Progressive Alliance or communist leader been arrested. It is unacceptable that the main Opposition party is not allowed to raise its objections over the arrest of its own chief," Malhotra said.
