New Delhi, Sep 8: The UPA government Friday lashed out at the BJP for disrupting parliament for the 13th day over coal block allocations and said its stand had the "genesis of fascism".
"The BJP's disruption of parliament for the past 13 days over the coal blocks allocations has a genesis of fascism in it and touched the nadir of political discourse," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal told reporters after the Aug 8-Sep 7 monsoon session ended sine die.
Bansal said that due to the disruptions, 77 of Lok Sabha's time and 72 percent of Rajya Sabha's time was lost.
"The parliament was disrupted by the BJP for the past three weeks. Hence no work could be done," he said.
"The per minute cost of running the parliament is around Rs.2.5 lakh," he added.
He said the government, which had identified around 32 bills to be taken up in the current session and had narrowed down the list to 15, could pass only four bills in 19 sittings.
The passed bills are Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development Bill, National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore, Bill, Chemical Weapons Convention (Amendment) Bill and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Amendment) Bill, 2012.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been demanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation after an official auditor's report said private players had a windfall gain worth Rs.1.86 lakh crore in 142 coal blocks allocated by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government between 2006 and 09.
Bansal said the BJP stuck to its demand and was afraid to debate the issue in the parliament since it would have exposed the party and affected its chances in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections.
On the role of Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, Bansal said she could have suspended the individual MPs but "nothing could be done against an unruly mob."
Bansal said he spoke to chief whips of the parties who assured cooperation but then did nothing.
"The government did everything possible to run the house," he said.
The minister denied there was any demand from the Bahujan Samaj Party to extend the session to get the bill for promotion quota to dalits and tribals passed.
"No such demand came to us," he said.
Bansal also took a dig at BJP leader L.K. Advani, saying he wanted mid-term elections.
