Amazed by defamatory comments by Pranab Mukherjee: Sushma Swaraj

Rohtak (Haryana), Feb 20(ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushma Swaraj on Sunday criticized Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for equating the opposition parties with the Maoist rebels after the winter session of the Parliament was stalled by the opposition.

The entire opposition parties including the BJP-led main opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Communist alliance, Left Front, boycotted the entire winter session of the Parliament insisting on their demand for setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe into the multi-billion dollar Telecom 2G spectrum scam.

"I am amazed by the defamatory comments made by Pranab Mukherjee that the people who did not let the parliament function should go and join the Maoists. We were told to join Maoist ultras. I would like to ask Pranab Mukherjee that Maoists do not believe in democracy or constitution. They just believe in violence," Swaraj said while addressing a rally organized by the NDA in Rohtak.

"Is our demand for a JPC a violent tactic, did we use the language of the gun? You are a lawmaker and such words do not suit you," she added.

The stalemate is likely to spill over to the crucial parliamentary budget session beginning on Monday with indications that the government might after all relent after the spectrum scam grew murkier with the recent cancellation of the S-band spectrum allocation contract.

Since the last few months, the Congress-led federal ruling coalition government has come under intense public and political scrutiny for not initiating prompt and stringent measures to quell the financial mismanagement rampant in the system.

Swaraj said that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh gave lame excuses that coalition politics had its compulsions.

"If we demand a JPC, Manmohan Singh counters by saying that it is coalition compulsion. I want to say to the Prime Minister that dishonesty goes against the political values and you cannot dilute these values to promote malpractices," she said. (ANI)