Thaindian News

New Delhi, Mar 22 (ANI): The ruling Congress party slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for disrupting the proceedings inside the Parliament on Tuesday over their demand for immediate debate on Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s statement on the cash-for-votes scandal exposed by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

Congress MP Rajiv Shukla questioning BJP’s logic asked its leaders to apply to the same standards.

“According to WikiLeaks, Mr. Advani has given a categorical assurance to US Ambassador that we are only taking a public posturing as far as the position of nuclear deal is concerned otherwise I am with you. So what is this double standard?” said Shukla.

“Have you wanted it to be exposed? That’s why, if there is discussion on WikiLeaks tomorrow in Parliament, we will also raise it,” he added demanding an apology from the Opposition.

Meanwhile, Congress MP from Uttar Pradesh Jagdambika Pal criticizing the BJP called their move as hypocrisy.

“We have brought it a notice against the BJP stand during nuclear deal 2008 because the stand of the BJP was hypocrisy as they have already spoken with the Charge d’Affaires of US, they have said that are very fine with the Nuclear deal,” said Pal.

“We were only doing public posture just to gain political purposes, political score, only we were opposing otherwise we were completely fine with the nuclear deal and it was absolute stand of hypocrisy they had misled to the whole country,” he added.

Earlier today, the BJP moved a privilege notice in the Lok Sabha against Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s response to the WikiLeaks cables that suggested that the Congress had bribed lawmakers to win a confidence motion in 2008.

Maintaining that the Prime Minister had “misled” Parliament on the cash-for-vote episode, the BJP said it was absolutely justified in taking this action as per parliamentary practices.

Earlier in the day, proceedings in Parliament were brought to a complete standstill, with members of the treasury and the opposition trading verbal charges over the issue of moving a privilege motion against the Prime Minister.

Dr. Singh had claimed last week that Members of Parliament were not bribed during the July 2008 trust vote even though the Parliamentary probe committee said that money was paid.

On Tuesday, the Upper House of Parliament was adjourned till 2 p.m. following the vociferous trading of charges between the treasury and opposition benches.

The Congress led UPA had earlier said it would move a privilege motion against Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, for trying to seek a clarification from the Prime Minister on the issue of cash for votes in spite of the Speaker Meira Kumar not allowing her to do so.

The Prime Minister had told Parliament last week that no bribe was paid, while the Kishore Chandra Deo committee that looked into the issue had stated that bribe was paid.

It is expected that the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley will give the notice of breach of privilege against the Prime Minister in the Upper House. (ANI)