India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Chaos reined on the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament on Wednesday, with the opposition and the treasury benches trading verbal volleys and charges over the ethnic violence in Assam. Describing the riots in and around Kokrajhar as the biggest failure of the Central Government, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani said: "Of the state's three-crore population, up to 400,000 are homeless... this is an unprecedented crisis." But Advani’s remark of describing the ruling UPA as "illegitimate" created chaos, leading Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to say that it was "an insult to Parliament." The debate on Assam - which has seen its worst violence in more than a decade with 70 people killed - began after Advani moved an adjournment motion on Assam . An adjournment motion asks for the usual business of the House to be set aside for an urgent discussion on a matter of national interest. Advani said he was pleased to note that the Prime Minister, who represents Assam in the Rajya Sabha, was present for the debate. The Prime Minister is likely to deliver a statement on behalf of the government. He is likely to appeal that no statement be made to communalise the situation. He will also stress that it's important for parties to focus on relief efforts and on restoring normalcy to the state. Advani said: "Let not anyone regard it as a Hindu vrsus Muslim issue, or a tribal versus non-tribal issue. It is a matter of who is India and who are foreigner." The BJP holds the government responsible for allowing illegal immigrants from Bangladesh to move freely into lower Assam . "The Assamese people are now refugees in their own state. Infiltration from Bangladesh is affecting the security of the whole country," Advani said. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who heads the Congress government in Assam , said yesterday that the state is "sitting on a volcano." He has been criticised for ignoring early warning signs of tension between the Bodo tribals and Bengali-speaking Muslims. More than 70 people have died in the last month. 400,000 people are displaced and living in 200 relief camps in lower Assam . Medicines and other supplies are running short. There are just 117 doctors moving from one camp to another as diseases like malaria spread. The BJP has also promised to attack Finance Minister P Chidambaram for his alleged role in the telecom scam. The party has accused Chidambaram of dereliction of duty because the 2G scam, named for the type of airwaves involved and estimated to be India's largest swindle - unfolded on his watch in 2008. Then Telecom Minister A Raja allegedly accepted huge kickbacks from companies who jumped to the head of a long queue for licenses for mobile networks. Chidambaram did not intervene, says the BJP. The minister has also been accused by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy of misusing his office to delay the sale of telecom Aircel to a company from Malaysia named Maxis. Swamy alleges that the delay helped Mr Chidambaram's son to invest in Aircel and benefit financially from its eventual purchase by Maxis. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court cancelled 122 2G licenses issued by Raja, and asked that they be reallocated via an auction to be completed by the end of August.

Chaos in Parliament after Advani describes UPA-2 Govt as illegitimate