Booka are no issue for Privilege Motion: BJP

New Delhi, Aug 2: Even as Rajya Sabha Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat is yet to pronounce his ruling on a Privilege notice against Leader of the Opposition Jaswant Singh over his controversial book ''A Call to Honour'', the BJP today asserted that books were not issues for a privilege motion.

BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra told mediapersons at a briefing in Parliament that discussions on content of books is never held in Parliament.

''If such a privilege motion is allowed, then the BJP would demand discussions on the Mitrokhin papers and on several other books, including the one written by former Prime Minister V P Singh, which mentions the Bofors deal,'' he said.

The issue earlier figured in the Rajya Sabha where Congress member V Narayanasamy charged the BJP leader with misleading Parliament and the country by claiming in his book that there was a mole in PMO during the Narasimha Rao regime who supplied secret information about India's nuclear programme to the US.

Meanwhile, the BJP came down heavily on Congress President Sonia Gandhi, taking strong exception to her speech at the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting yesterday wherein she said that only one community should not be targetted in the fight against terrorism.

''What did she mean by one community,'' Prof Malhotra sought to know, adding that she must know that terrorism was Pak-sponsored and therefore majority of terrorists were from one community.

Terming her statement as a ''pure vote bank gimmick'' to woo Muslims, who were against the Congress-led UPA Government due to its stand on Iran, Iraq and Indo-US Nuclear Deal, in view of the coming elections in Uttar Pradesh, he said Ms Gandhi ''must understand that she was holding a responsible position and her statement would have serious repurcussions and would demoralise the security forces in their drive against terrorism.'' Similarly, Prof Malhotra said the Congress chief should restrain herself from blaming the BJP-led NDA government for the all-round failures of the UPA government. Noting that the UPA Government had been in power for the past two years but yet blaming NDA for the inflation, he said it ''perhaps, wants to complete its five year term by blaming NDA for failure to control price rise.''

UNI