BJP defends washout of Monsoon Session of Parliament

New Delhi, Sept 7:

today defended the washout of nearly the entire Monsoon Session of Parliament by the Opposition saying a similar exercise in 2010 on the

spectrum issue had led to cleansing of the telecom sector and hoped it will bring transparency in the allocation of natural resources.

At a session-end press conference here, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the UPA government for the reported anomalies in coal block allocations.

BJP announced that it will take the fight to the streets and from "village to village" after not allowing Parliament to function. The main opposition maintained it is not in favour of disrupting Parliament often and it should be resorted to in the "rarest of rare cases" but insisted that the 2G spectrum scam and now the coal scam demanded this.

"One session of Parliament has earlier been lost on account of corruption in allotment of 2G spectrum. That helped this country to cleanse the telecom sector. Hopefully, the long term gains of this session may enable future governments to clean up the process of allocation of natural resources," Jaitley said.

Terming the allotment of coal blocks as arbitrary and discretionary, he alleged that these took place "under the very nose of the Prime Minister who also held the coal portfolio" are textbook case of "crony capitalism".

The party suggested that the government institute a commission of inquiry into coal scam and the Prime Minister depose before it.

BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters outside Parliament that the party will now go to the streets to make people aware of the government's "wrong doings" on various fronts.

"We are not demanding mid-term polls but we want the government to go. The reason being the government has not only failed on all fronts but is also deeply involved in corruption," he said.

PTI