By IANS,
New Delhi : “Goverdhan Parbat” (Goverdhan mountain) in Rajasthan may not have anything to do with the India-US nuclear deal or with the fate of the Manmohan Singh-led government but it was one of the issues raised by a MP during the debate on the confidence motion moved by the prime minister.
The special session of the Lok Sabha Monday and Tuesday may have been called to discuss the trust vote of the government but the level of the debate is already indicating that parties and MPs are pushing the most irrelevant of things to drive home their respective agendas.
Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Devendra Kumar Yadav raised the Goverdhan Parbat issue and went hammers and tongs at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Rajasthan, triggering a noisy response from the BJP benches.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad joined the issue in his own characteristic style, challenging the BJP members to have a ‘Mahabharat’ (epic battle) with him.
Except for Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani whose speech was a typical attack from an opposition leader and the “speech of the day” from external affairs minister and leader of the house in the Lok Sabha, Pranab Mukherjee, who did a thorough job of explaining what the nuclear deal was and why it was important, not many speakers kept themselves to the subject.
Janata Dal-United (JD-U) MP Prabhu Nath Singh even had an objection to the photographs of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not adorning the walls of government offices across the country, leading to protests from the Congress MPs and ministers.
Akali Dal MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa went great lengths to explain how and why the Prime Minister, despite being a Sikh, had not not done anything for the community and for Punjab.
BJP’s MP from Orissa M.A. Kharvel Swain had his own assertions to put forward about the way the Indian economy was doing compared to the growth rates in Pakistan, Bangladesh and even Burkina Faso in Africa.
BJP MP from Bihar Shah Nawaz Hussain kept jesting and speaking in frivolous terms for several minutes and said little that had anything to do with the subject of the debate. He was interrupted several times by other MPs and even by the speaker.