NEW DELHI: The Congress stuck to its demand for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s apology for alleging that former PM Manmohan Singh colluded with Pakistan in the Gujarat elections.
“We respect the PM but he made an allegation against former PM and some senior officers publicly. This is not done. Parliament is the right place for PM to clarify his remark,” said Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Taking a dig at Modi, Azad quipped that the Opposition would let go of the issue if the PM acknowledged that he made the controversial remark only to win the Gujarat polls.
Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said party members will continue to raise the issue in the house till the matter was resolved. “We need to debate why the PM made that remark,” he said.
With both sides sticking to their stand, an early resolution to this deadlock seems unlikely this week. The deadlock in the Rajya Sabha continued for the fourth day on Wednesday with the Congress creating ruckus in the House demanding apology from Modi. Following slogan-shouting by the Congress members, the House was adjourned for the day minutes after it re-assembled at 2 pm.
Amid interruptions by the Congress members, Chairman of the House M Venkaiah Naidu said, “Nobody is going to give apology. Nothing happened in this House. No statement was made in this House... So, there is no practice of suspending the Question Hour... Please go back to your seats. Don’t make a mockery of the House. Already, a wrong message is going. The House is adjourned to meet at 2.00 p.m. in the afternoon.”
“The Leader of the House, the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs may sit together and arrive at a consensus on the issue. Let us wait for that,” deputy chairman of the House PJ Kurien said amid the din by the Congress.
The BJP has ruled out the possibility of an apology from Modi to his predecessor. The Congress has sought an apology from the Prime Minister for his allegations against Singh on the Gujarat election trail.