On Natwar, Oppn in no mood to relent

With the Government and the Speaker failing to mollify the Opposition on the Natwar Singh-Volcker controversy, the next two days of Parliame...

With the Government and the Speaker failing to mollify the Opposition on the Natwar Singh-Volcker controversy, the next two days of Parliament are likely to prove stormy. Defence Minister and Leader of the House in the Lok Sabha, Pranab Mukherjee, met Leader of the Opposition L K Advani but failed to break the stalemate.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who attended the meeting, admitted no agreement could be reached as Advani insisted that Natwar must quit the Union Cabinet.

Questioning the logic behind retaining Natwar in the Cabinet when he had been dropped from the Congress Steering Committee, Advani said the Opposition would consider “any concrete action” by the Centre. However, the Centre would not make any commitment on these “concrete steps”.

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The BJP leader also criticised the way Aniel Mathrani, Indian Ambassador to Croatia, was whisked away by the Enforcement Directorate from Delhi Airport for interrogation. Parliament has been adjourned without transacting any business since Friday over Mathrani’s revelations about the Iraq oil-for-food deal in which Natwar and the Congress have been named.

The Opposition has raised slogans inside the House against UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and demanded that she quit her post as well.

The Opposition protest is unlikely to peter out with Advani heading to Varanasi to address a protest rally and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a visit to Russia. The BJP-led Opposition even made an issue of Manmohan’s absence from Parliament.

This morning, the BJP gave a notice in the Lok Sabha asking for Question Hour to be suspended to discuss the Natwar issue. Sources said Speaker Somnath Chatterjee rejected the notice as it was not valid under any rule even as all UPA partners as well as the Left and SP said a discussion should only be allowed if all parties were allowed “to speak”.

Left for meeting to end impasse in Parliament

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NEW DELHI: The UPA and Left parties met in Parliament House on Monday to devise a strategy to get out of the parliamentary stalemate as NDA members repeatedly stalled proceedings following the publication of Aniel Mathrani’s interview on Natwar Singh’s alleged role in the oil for food programme.

Both parties were trying to find ways to beat back the BJP as it relentlessly put the heat on the UPA in the aftermath of Mathrani’s interview to India Today. Basudeb Acharia, CPI(M)’s leader in the Lok Sabha, said it was decided at the meeting—attended by top Congress and Left leaders—that an all-party meeting could be called to ask for an assurance from the BJP that it would not stall proceedings.

Sources said an all-party meeting was likely to be held on Tuesday, if the business advisory committee failed to resolve the impasse.

IN FACT

		Congress Steering Committee WHEN: Late on December 4 night, Union Minister Without Portfolio K Natwar Singh was removed from the Congress Steering Committee. What is this panel? Who is in it? How is it different from the more well-known All India Congress Committee and the Congress Working Committee (CWC)? WHAT: The Congress Steering Committee is actually the CWC, the once powerful decision-making body of the party. The masquerade was necessitated by the fact that after her re-election as the party president in May 2005 Sonia Gandhi is yet to constitute the CWC. What she did, therefore, as an interim measure was to redesignate the outgoing CWC as the Steering Committee, retaining all the members of the old panel. The panel has, under the party constitution, 25 members, of whom some incumbents are Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Arjun Singh, Shivraj Patil, Sonia’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, general secretaries Ambika Soni, Digvijay Singh, Margaret Alva, Janardhan Dwivedi, Ashok Gehlot and treasurer Moti Lal Vora. Story continues below this ad WHY:Natwar’s removal from the highest decision-making panel of the party was, according to political watchers, a clear message to him to resign over the Volcker Report. If we don’t want you in the Steering Committee, why should you be there in the Union Cabinet, is the underlying hint. Natwar, however, does not seem inclined to bite the bullet.

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