HYDERABAD: BJP president Rajnath Singh on Monday asked the government to advance the monsoon session of Parliament to pass the food security Bill.
“We are ready for a debate on food security and land acquisition bills. We want these bills passed with some amendments. The monsoon session be advanced for this,” he told reporters here.
He said it would be a cruel joke, if an ordinance is issued on the proposed food security Bill.
The two bills would have been passed in the last session of Parliament had the UPA government accepted the resignations of law and railway ministers (Ashwin Kumar and Pawan Kumar Bansal), as sought by the BJP then.
Dismissing the allegations of the Congress’ that the BJP is not letting the Parliament function smoothly, Singh said the primary responsibility to ensure the smooth functioning of the Parliament lay with the government.
Observing that BJP’s role is like that of a watch dog, he said BJP was playing the role of principal opposition party effectively.
Advani’s remark on Modi misinterpreted: Singh, meanwhile, has denied any rift within the party.
Singh said the statement of LK Advani praising Madhay Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had been misinterpreted.
To a query about Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh’s reported remarks that there is a cold war within the BJP, Rajnath Singh replied in the negative and said that a cold war actually existed in the Congress.
He downplayed the comparison by Advani between Chouhan and Modi.
Noting that Gujarat chief minister NarendraModi is an extremely popular leader in the country, he said the issue of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate would be decided by the party’s parliamentary board.
Asked whether BJP patriarch LK Advani is pitching one against another by appreciating Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the BJP president felt that Advani’s statement was put to wrong interpretation.
He slammed the Centre for the 20-day stand-off over a platoon of Chinese troops setting up camp in Indian territory in April and said, “China has encircled India…Pakistan, a small country, comes in, decapitates the body of our soldier and returns a mutilated body…Whether it is Burma or Bangladesh, we don’t have cordial relations with anyone.”
And he accused the Centre of “politicising” the Maoist attack on a convoy of cars carrying Congress leaders in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh last week, and put the blame for the rise of Naxalism on the central government. (Agencies)