Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday met lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan but there were no signs of any immediate end to the 16-day-long deadlock in Parliament over the demonetisation issue.
Soon after Sonia had a brief meeting with Mahajan, the Congress made it clear that there has been no toning down of its demand for having a discussion on demonetisation under the rule entailing voting in the lok Sabha and ensuring the presence of the Prime Minister during the debate in the Rajya Sabha.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi claimed that the ruling side was “running scared” of voting in the lok Sabha despite a comfortable majority as it apprehends that some of its allies may vote against it.
Singhvi dismissed as “joke of the century”, BJP’s demand for an apology from Opposition for disrupting Parliament insisting that the Prime Minister owed an apology to over 100 crore people affected due to his decision.
Hitting back at the BJP and the Government, Singhvi said at AICC briefing that the “failure” of the ruling dispensation to have a debate in Parliament showed its “panic and scare”.
He alleged that the BJP was not allowing Rahul Gandhi to speak in Parliament as it “feared him”.
“The BJP for all its bravado is running scared because it thinks the bravado is another ‘jumla’,” he said, adding that it “feared” that some of its alliance partners would not be supportive of its action. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” he said virtually daring the ruling NDA to have a debate in lok Sabha with voting.