Left-BJP row over Vajpayee letter disrupts LS

New Delhi, Aug 10: The Left and the BJP today fought over former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's letter to Speaker Somnath Chatterjee forcing adjournment of the Lok Sabha for the day.

Returning to the House after ending a day's boycott to protest the Speaker's decision to conduct business on Monday despite Opposition protests, the NDA faced vociferous protests from the Left members over the language of Mr Vajpayee's letter.

Heated exchanges between the two saw three adjournments till 1330 hrs before the House was adjourned for the day.

The Left and the BJP members shouted slogans against each other and demands from some Left MPs for an apology from Mr Vajpayee for criticising the functioning of the Speaker were heard in the bedlam.

The Left MPs were supported by the Congress and the RJD members.

The BJP members shouted slogans against Congress president Sonia Gandhi accusing the ruling party for making suspended party leader K Natwar Singh a ''scapegoat'' in the oil-for-food scam.

The House was adjourned till 1130 hrs after verbal duel between the Left and the BJP following the protests by Mr Basudeb Acharia (CPI-M) against Mr Vajpayee's letter.

The House was adjourned again till 1300 hrs, but the continued protests and accusations against each other by the Left and the BJP forced a third adjournment till 1330 hrs before Deputy Speaker Charnjit Singh Atwal. who was in the Chair, adjourned the House till tomorrow.

After the House paid homage to martyrs of the Quit India Movement and the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki holocaust, Mr Devendra Prasad Yadav (RJD) raised the flood issue and wanted a discussion on it.

Mr Chatterjee said it was a serious matter of public concern as lakhs and lakhs of people were suffering, and he would allow a discussion on it after Question Hour.

He then called out the first question, but Mr Acharia, the leader of the CPI (M) in the Lower House, stood up to protest against Mr Vajpayee's letter. This drew instant reaction from BJP members, and the two sides entered into heated exchanges.

In his reply to a letter from the Speaker to reconsider the NDA decision to boycott the House, Mr Vajpayee had observed that ''a legislature's proceedings can be smooth and constructive only if the Presiding Officer is able to inspire as much confidence in the Opposition as he is able to do in the ruling parties''. ''A stark reality is that the situation is totally absent in our House,'' he wrote.

On Tuesday, the BJP-led Opposition did not attend the Lok Sabha to protest against the Speaker's decision of not allowing them to raise a privilege motion against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a day earlier on leakage of the Pathak Inquiry Authority Report to the media.

There was no sitting yesterday on account of Raksha Bandhan.

UNI

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