Left parties showed disrespect to Speaker: BJP

New Delhi, Aug 10: In a reverse action, the BJP today charged the Left parties of showing disrespect to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee by obstructing the Question Hour for the past two days.

''It is not the BJP or NDA but the Left parties which are not paying respect to the Chair by creating din in the House,'' BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said.

Mr Malhotra said that it was decided at a meeting of various party leaders with the Speaker that the debate on the serious flood situation in various states, particularly Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra, would be taken up at 1200 hours after the Question Hour.

The BJP and other parties had agreed to cooperate in passing the Supplementary Demands of Grants and debate would be taken up under 193 on the farmers' suicide issue.

But members belonging to the Left parties raked up the Vajpayee letter issue during the Question Hour itself. As a result, the Chair had to adjourn the House thrice before calling off the day at 1330 hours, he said.

Yesterday also, the Question Hour was disturbed and more than 15 members were allowed to condemn the NDA and BJP for their boycott of the House. the Leftists were often sermonising that the Question Hour in Parliament should not be disturbed unless there was some very important issue concerning national interest. But what they were doing in the past two days was ''objectionable and condemnable'', he said.

Mr Malhotra accused the Centre of treating Gujarat in 'step motherly' manner and not releasing grants for meeting the flood situation.

Mr Malhotra defended Mr Vajpayee's letter to the Speaker, saying he had not said anything objectionable in the communication. In fact, he had only conveyed the feelings of the NDA members about the manner in which the House was being run.

Meanwhile, Mr Malhotra said, an NDA delegation would call on President A P J Abdul Kalam tomorrow evening and hand over a memorandum expressing NDA's apprehension about the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal. ''We want to convey that the deal is not in national interest''. India, he said, had been treated on par with other nuclear states.

UNI

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