Brawl in Lok Sabha over 26/11

As India was paying homage to the victims and martyrs of 26/11 terror attacks,  Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, L K Advani, reminded the government of the zero progress in providing justice and relief to the victims of the assault or their families. However, Advani's remark took an ugly shape of accusations and denial between the Congress and BJP. Leader of the house, Pranab Muhkerjee accused Advani of politiising the issue. An angry Mukherjee said that Advani was  making politics out of the issue as he has done in earlier issues also. Mukherjee’s outburst came in the wake of former Union minister Anant Kumar’s insistence that the Leader of the House should respond to Advani’s concerns over the status of relief and compensation to the victims of 26/11 and the serial blasts in Mumbai suburban trains. Advani had earlier informed the House that out of 403 persons eligible for the relief, only 118 had received cheques.  While 64 of them were eligible for railway jobs, only 32 had received offers till now. The Opposition leader pointed out that 164 people had been killed and another 239 injured in the 26/11 attack while about 1,000 were affected in the train blasts earlier. Advani also said that the relief could reach the train blast victims only after two years and that too after he had spoken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the victims moved the National Human Rights Commission.

The Opposition leader also offered a solution that a special cell be created within the Union home ministry, with an officer on special duty as its head, to look into the problems of coordination among 12 different agencies, including eight belonging to the state government, involved
in handling of relief operations. Speaker of the House, Meira Kumar tried to soften Advani by saying, saying it was a solemn occasion and that everyone should maintain its solemnity. She reminded the members that Mukherjee had already said he had come specially to hear Advani. The issue was raised prominently raised in the Rajya Sabha also.  During zero hour,  BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said a cheque given to one of the beneficiaries bounced back while a number of others got nothing. The railway minister had promised a job to the dependents of all those killed at CST, but many have not got employment yet, he said. Similarly, the petroleum minister had promised allocation of petrol pump to the dependents of the security personnel, but later it was made clear that they would be receiving only a monthly commission of Rs 25,000