Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today apologised in the Lok Sabha for the unparliamentary remarks of Congress member Beni Prasad Verma against former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The apology placated BJP members who had threatened to stall House proceedings.
?I was not present in the House yesterday but I have heard that some very undesirable developments took place. A member of the ruling coalition said something which was not appropriate and with regard to Vajpayeeji those words were used. I, on behalf of our government, apologise to the House that those words will not be repeated,? Singh said during the question hour after his return from a tour of Russia.
Beni Prasad Verma had used a derogatory remark against Vajpayee while Lok Sabha was debating the Liberhan Commission Report on the destruction of the Babri Masjid.
In Rajya Sabha today, the report continued to generate heat with the Congress and SP holding the Sangh Parivar and BJP responsible for the 1992 demolition of the mosque. The BJP, in turn, called the Liberhan report a ?national joke?.
In identical references to Vajpayee, the Congress and SP said the former Prime Minister cannot evade responsibility. ?Mr Vajpayee shares some guilt,? said Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi, adding ?he cannot run with the communal hare and hunt with a secular hound?. If Vajpayee, he said, felt aggrieved by the commission report, he could go to court and get the remarks against him expunged.
Leading the BJP charge in the Upper House, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said the commission was headed by a ?puny judge? who took 17 years for ?self-employment? and the report, therefore, needs to be debunked.
?The report is devoid of any credibility, a report which is an exercise in futility, a report which has been called a dud report and the ATR itself indicates it is an unimplementable report,? Jaitley said.
He said it was a ?fraud on fact finding process? and asked why it took 17 years to prepare the report.
Jaitley wondered who was the de facto author of the report and pointed out that the Commission itself names Harpreet Singh Giani who analysed the evidence and gave the ideas for writing the report. ?The Commission is a truth investigator, not a political pundit …The judge (Justice Liberhan) ignored the entire evidence and came to a finding?.
Jaitley said, ?He errs on basic facts… Gets the date of Mahatma Gandhi?s assassination wrong…He says Veer Savarkar was the founder of the RSS? .
He also picked holes in various recommendations of the report, saying it was ?full of howlers and is a tragedy of errors?.
The debate was marked by frequent disruptions and clashes mainly among Congress, BJP and SP.