Mamata Banerjee"s Party Weakens Opposition Unity Over Parliament Protests

New Delhi:  Mamata Banerjee has reportedly sent word that she is unhappy with Parliament being disrupted and wants the Houses to function, in what could crack the Opposition unity that the Congress had managed to craft over its demand that three senior BJP ministers must quit immediately.

A senior member of Ms Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress Sudip Bandopadhyay today said after an all-party meeting called by the government, “We want House to function. There are various issues related to Bengal which we want to raise.”

Sources said Trinamool lawmaker Derek O’Brien has spoken to many Opposition parties over the deadlock in Parliament and several are said to agree that the Houses must function.

But Congress president Sonia Gandhi said at a meeting of her party’s lawmakers his morning, “Our stand is very clear… there is a mountain of incontrovertible evidence in the public domain for the Prime Minister to require the resignations of the External Affairs Minister and the two chief ministers.”

While the Congress has led the demand that foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and the two BJP chief ministers Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh, all caught in controversies, must resign before work can be done in Parliament, other Opposition parties like the Left too have backed it.

The Samajwadi Party has said it does not want Sushma Swaraj to resign, but the chief ministers must.

The BJP has ruled out any resignations, but, to persuade the Congress to allow Parliament to attend to important business has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will speak on the controversies in Parliament if a debate is initiated.

Mrs Gandhi rejected that offer today, launching a scathing attack on PM Modi.

Her party’s Ghulam Nabi Azad said after the all-party meeting, “Outcome is nil. We stand by our demand.”

Half of the 21-day Monsoon Session has been lost to disruptions, with very little work done. The government needs to push at least 11 bills including that for the big reform the Goods and Services Tax.