BJP for advancing Parl session to pass Food Bill

Hyderabad: Observing that the BJP is in favour of passing the Food Security Bill with some amendments, party president Rajnath Singh today asked the government to advance the monsoon session of Parliament for the purpose.

"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. Noting that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi 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 L K 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. To a query about Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh`s reported remarks that there is a cold war within the BJP, he replied in the negative and said that a cold war actually existed in the Congress. PTI