Budget session a success for Opposition: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday claimed that the budget session was “successful” for the Opposition despite the wide margin-defeat of the cut motion that saw Opposition unity in tatters and put a question mark on the survival of the BJP's coalition in Jharkhand.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj termed a success of the Opposition the resignation of Shashi Tharoor, who was asked by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to put in his papers as Minister following revelations of irregularities in the awarding of the Indian Premier League Kochi franchise with a sweat equity worth Rs. 70 crores to Sunanda Pushkar, admittedly Mr. Tharoor's friend.

In a joint statement, Ms. Swaraj and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley defended the Opposition tactics in keeping price rise in focus and the putting the government on the mat inside and outside Parliament. Ms. Swaraj denied that her party had not put enough pressure on the government in the scandal over allotment of 2G spectrum or that, in the end, the BJP allowed it to introduce the nuclear civil liability bill by walking out and facilitating the move.

Dismissing the claim of Opposition disunity, as revealed by the cut motion vote, Ms. Swaraj differentiated between the “phoney Opposition” and the “real Opposition,” the latter represented by the BJP and its partners in the National Democratic Alliance.

As for the government managing the support of the Bahujan Samaj Party and neutralising the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in the cut motion vote, the BJP leaders attributed it to “misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation” for manipulating the leadership of these parties.

The BJP charged the government with sacrificing the women's reservation Bill to political expediency by taking on board the sensitivities of the BSP, the SP and the RJD.

Ms. Swaraj did not agree that the “misuse of the Gujarat police” had virtually been recorded by the Supreme Court not only in the 2002 riot cases but also in fake encounter killings, especially the triple murder of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kausarbi and his friend and witness Tulsiram Prajapati.