Parties are obstructing instead of opposing: Kamal Nath

New Delhi: With the Winter Session being a wash out, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath on Friday blamed "competitive" politics for the large number of pending legislations, saying political parties were resorting to "obstructing" instead of "opposing" on the floor of the House.

"Previously, there was a vote. You don`t like it, you vote against it. Now there is nothing called opposing, it`s obstructing," he said. Nath said it was a very challenging task to get everybody to converge on important issues. "You start dealing with Samajwadi Party, the BSP will say another thing. The BJP will not say one thing, it will say three things. Then you have the DMK racing with AIADMK, you have the TMC racing with the Leftists, so each one is racing with the other. It is competitive," he said. "And what happens to the pending legislation, we talk of our insurance bill, they say OK pass it. And the next morning they say we have not been able to finalise it in our own party. What`s happening on GST. The government is ready with it," he said. The Parliamentary Affairs minister`s comments come after Winter Session saw disruptions over a range of issues including Telangana and 2G. Government managed to get passed the Lokpal Bill but other important legislations remained pending. In his speech at an event organised by the PHDCCI, Nath also took a swipe at Congress` rival parties in Delhi. He said that he had heard someone say that Delhi is in a limbo, so the people who are responsible for it should be asked. "Our party had said please form the government, we don`t have the numbers, we recognise it. Now somebody must form the government," Nath said. He said that Delhi had seen much development "in the last 15 years but had no government for the past 15 days". Responding to criticism by earlier speakers at the event, Nath said that in a democracy diverse voices have to be heard. "We must remember democracy is not a buffet table that you pick what you want. I am afraid democracy is a very fixed menu and some of the things which you complain about are really the result of a democratic system where all voices, all shades of opinion come to the forefront," Nath said. He added that Indian economy is not driven by large metropolises such as Delhi and Mumbai but by medium and small towns. He said that infrastructure will be a huge driver for economic growth in the next decade. Nath emphasised on the importance of Public Private Partnership (PPP) models in the infrastructure sector. "Presently 32 per cent of infrastructure projects are through PPP which needs to be increased to 50 per cent," he said.