Privilege move fails, Cong walks out
Resignation issue rocks Parliament
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Dec 8 — The issue of resignation by two senior ministers of the Vajpayee government rocked both Houses of Parliament today with angry Congress members staging a walkout in the Lok Sabha in protest against the rejection of a privilege notice against the Prime Minister.

In the Rajya Sabha, a united opposition demanded that the Prime Minister take the House into confidence over resignations of the Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani and the Human Resource Development Minister, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi. The members demanded that the Prime Minister must inform the House and clarify whether the two ministers had submitted their resignations and why were they not accepted?

In the Lok Sabha senior Congress MP, Mr Santosh Mohan Dev, who had given the privilege notice, said the House discussed the charge against the ministers and the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee replied to the debate. But he did not tell the House about the resignations.

However, soon after the debate, the Prime Minister, who had in possession the resignations, chose to tell the media that it was a fact that the two ministers had resigned, Mr Dev said stressing that this amounted to a breach of privilege.

He wanted to know whether it was not the 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, Mr Dev said.

After listening to a few Congress members, the Speaker, Mr G.M.C. Balayogi ruled that what Mr Vajpayee had stated outside Parliament did not constitute any breach of privilege or contempt of the House. So he was withholding his consent on the notice.

This irked the Congress members who said the Prime Minister was sitting in the House and should clarify the position. They also wanted the Speaker to properly examine the question and get an explanation from the Prime Minister on the floor of the House.

The Speaker did not accept the plea and said the privilege notice had been given to the Chair and not to the Prime minister. He also observed that the statement made by Mr Vajpayee did not relate to any policy decisions.

This had the Congress members further agitated and they walked out of the House in protest.

Earlier raising the issue, Mr Madhavrao Scindia, Deputy Leader of the Congress in the House, said the Prime Minister had committed a grave impropriety by withholding from the House the information about resignations and announcing it immediately outside the House. It was an insult to the House which was treated very casually. He also wanted to know the reaction of the Prime Minister to the issue.

Mr Jaipal Reddy, also from the Congress said the Prime Minister had taken an astounding legal position that those who are charge-sheeted by the police were not disqualified to remain as members of the Cabinet.

After the Congress walkout, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, CPM, said holding back information was not a good precedent. He wanted the Speaker to lay down the norms as otherwise ministers also would withhold information from the House.

Noisy scenes were also witnessed in the Rajya Sabha with members of the Left strongly demanding that the Prime Minister inform the House about the two senior members of his Cabinet who had offered to resign yesterday on the Ayodhya issue.

Raising the issue during zero hour, Mr Nilotpal Basu of the CPM drew the attention of the Chair to the statement made by the Prime Minister in the Lok Sabha about the ministers L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.

When the Leader of the House, Mr Jaswant Singh, rose to clarify that the Prime Minister had not made any statement as such and had merely intervened to say that he had not accepted their resignations, Mohammed Salim also of the CPM demanded that the House must know the facts.

Senior CPI member Gurudas Dasgupta said since Parliament was in session and this was an important issue, the members had every right to know the correct position. He said that it was his right to parliamentary information. Refuting the Opposition charge that he was misleading the House by not lacing facts before members, Mr Jaswant Singh said it would not be fair to comment on what had happened in the other House.

“The Prime Minister just reacted to a certain situation in the other House and it does not warrant its repetition here,” he said.

When Leader of the Opposition in the House, Mr Manmohan Singh, demanded that the Upper House be taken into confidence, Mr Jaswant Singh agreed saying: “I will faithfully communicate the views of this House to the Prime Minister”.