Minutes after Chatterjee announced his intention to withdraw the reference, the Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die.
Chatterjee's peace initiative with the rattled opposition MPs, who started the day by putting fingers on their lips to protest against him, came after a heated meeting with all political parties. In the meeting, which lasted for almost two hours, NDA leaders like JD(U)'s Prabhunath Singh came down heavily on the Left parties while refusing to apologise for their behaviour in the House.
The NDA had planned that while the Leader of the Opposition, LK Advani, would tread the path of reconciliation; Singh would launch the attack. So, when his turn came, Singh told Chatterjee, "I will not debate how many times the Left MPs came down in the well to disrupt the House during the NDA regime. But even after your tenure, incidents of throwing of paperweights have taken place. Where was your conscience that time? In another incident, foul language was used, death threats were given to me, MPs almost fought with each other. That didn't appeal to your conscience either."
When Singh and BJP's Vijay Kumar Malhotra made it clear they would repeat their protests if needed, leader of the House, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, intervened to say there should be some code of conduct for MPs in the House.
Singh snapped back at Mukherjee, "Why only for MPs? Only 12 per cent of the promises made by the ministers have been fulfilled till date. Shouldn't there be a similar code for the ministers as well."
Singh even hit back at CPI's Gurudas Dasgupta. "I know how you people get elected in West Bengal. If you have the power, try to get elected outside Bengal. Don't try to be the voice of the nation." According to the peace formula proposed by NCP's Sharad Pawar, Mukherjee made a statement in the House requesting the Speaker to reconsider his decision to refer 32 MPs to the Privileges Committee to "let the impasse be over". Advani supported the statement and made a similar appeal. At this, the Speaker melted.
