Ansari evades queries on disruptions in Parliament

"I am a referee and my work is not to speak", Vice President Hamid Ansari said today refusing to get drawn into the issue of continuous disruptions in the Rajya Sabha where key legislations including the GST are stuck.
"I am a referee, my work is not to speak. I would not like to answer on Rajya Sabha," the Rajya Sabha Chairman said when asked about the disruptions in the upper house, where Congress-led opposition has been protesting over the issue of alleged "vendetta politics".
He was speaking to reporters while returning from Turkmenistan where he attended the groundbreaking ceremony of TAPI gas pipeline with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

He said while there is cooperation between countries of different region, there is little cooperation within South Asia.
"There is no integrated regional cooperation in South Asia. There is little bit of cooperation with Bangladesh and Bhutan," he said adding that the TAPI pipeline is a good initiative.
When asked about the reasons, he said "when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled."

Asked why the relations between India and Pakistan have frequent 'ups and downs', Ansari said the relations are "doing fine (theek chal rahe hain)".
Ansari had met Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Turkmenistan on two occasions -- during conference on neutrality and the TAPI project groundbreaking.

Responding to questions on the recent thaw in Indo-Pak relations and his subsequent meeting with the Pakistani leader, he said it is a "positive development".