The BJP Parliamentary party is meeting today to brief party members on the party's strategy. The executive of the parliamentary party met yesterday.
According to a party spokes-person, it has been decided in the Speaker's meeting with various political party leaders that the House would skip lunches and sit for an extra hour daily in order to complete discussion on the Budget. The spokesperson said Finance Bill could be brought in the House on September 9.
Though it has kept its option open to jump into the issue with full force, the party, it appears, would not make a major issue of the telecommunication issue. There is a general opinion in the party that the licencees should not be penalised for the deeds of Sukh Ram.
We are not like the Left that we would demand an outright scrapping of the telecom licences, general secretary Pramod Mahajan said. Such a stand would bring down the reliability of the country in the eyes of the international business community.
Even if a Joint Parliamentary Committee is set up, it would take months to finalise its report. Till then the licencees can not be asked to stop work, Mahajan said.
He said his party had not taken any formal view on the issue, but was confident that when it did it would not be different from his views.