New Delhi, December 16
The BJP today gave enough hints that it was unhappy with the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and sought a meeting to discuss the way the House has been functioning.

While maintaining that it had not referred to the Speaker but to the government as “dictatorial”, a charge Mr Chatterjee had cited this morning when he said he would rather quit, BJP parliamentary party spokesman V.K. Malhotra said “we don’t want to discuss anything publicly on the Speaker but the NDA has a lot to say on the manner the House is functioning”.

“We want him to convene a meeting to discuss all issues, including the government backtracking on the commitments made at the all-party meeting”, Professor Malhotra said.

Responding to a question on the Speaker’s offer to resign if the members were not happy with him, Professor Malhotra replied in the affirmative when asked whether the Opposition had complaints against “others” besides the government over the functioning of the House.

Professor Malhotra said a meeting of the NDA would soon be held to discuss the government functioning. The NDA also had many grievances as to how the government was treating Parliament and dealing with the Opposition parties. “We will convey our grievances to the Speaker,” he said.

The BJP Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha, however, clarified that the party had referred to the government as “tanashah” (dictatorial) over which the Speaker had taken strong exception and offered to step down.