5 Questions: Opposition does not want any discussion in Parliament, says Sanjay Jaiswal
How do you view the protests and disruption of proceedings that have taken place?
The opposition does not want any discussion in Parliament. Last time also, he had a short-term discussion on a price hike, but he boycotted it. They know they are at fault. They just want to gain the limelight by protesting.
But are they not raising an issue concerning the lives of common people?
They are talking about GST on packaged food items. All such decisions were taken by the GST Council which includes representatives of state governments, including people from the Congress Party, Communists, TMC and others. He did not object there (during the council meetings). Now they are asking why the GST Council has taken such a decision. But the centre has nothing to do with it.
There was an all-party meeting ahead of the Monsoon session. Did the Opposition not say they would raise these issues?
I am a member of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC). The BAC meeting was held on the very first day itself. They (opposition members) gave their agenda for discussion and our Parliamentary Affairs Minister and Speaker agreed on all those issues. But once out, they don’t follow it. Whether there will be a discussion or not is decided not by their MPs, but by an MP who keeps going abroad and is not interested in running Parliament.
According to the slogans raised near the Gandhi statue, the opposition said that they want a debate on GST.
Who stopped them? Why did you (the Opposition) not say it in the BAC meeting? Not even once did they mention it.
When the BJP was in opposition, the party stalled the proceedings of Parliament on several issues. The opposition is now saying that the BJP, which came to power, has taken a different stand in this matter.
I was part of that parliamentary party of BJP. We stopped the proceedings when corruption was confirmed, or there was a scam in a particular department of the government. Most of the time, our protest was after the Supreme Court took a stand on those corruption allegations. Our stand on such issues proved correct.
