BJP leader LK Advani has said he is ready to speak to Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh on a bill
After a meeting of BJP lawmakers on Tuesday morning, party patriarch LK Advani reportedly stopped three top ministers and declared that he was ready to speak to Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh to resolve a niggling problem for the government.
Mr Advani, 89, made the offer as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar were coming out of the meeting at parliament.
Mr Jaitley had, in the weekly meeting, explained to party lawmakers why the government had been forced to repeatedly bring out an ordinance or special executive order on the Enemy Property Act, a 48-year-old law to guard against claims of succession or transfer of properties left by people who migrated to Pakistan or China after wars.
The ordinance seeks to do away with an anomaly that emerged in a case linked to Raja Mahmudabad, a former royal who owned vast property in Uttar Pradesh. After Partition, the Raja left India and lived in various countries including Iraq and Pakistan. His wife and son, however, stayed back and challenged the government's right to take away the property.
The ordinance to skirt a Supreme Court decision favouring the family's claim was first issued in 2010, when the Manmohan Singh's UPA government was in power.
The order has been cleared in the Lok Sabha but has been blocked in the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in a minority, forcing it to keep it alive by issuing ordinance after ordinance. Both houses of parliament need to approve of an ordinance before it becomes law.
In December, when the government issued another ordinance and it went to President Pranab Mukherjee for the record fifth time, he made his displeasure clear but signed off on it "because it involves national interest" said sources close to him.
When the BJP meeting ended, Mr Advani called it a "very serious issue" linked to national security. Questioning why the Congress was blocking a law that it had introduced, Mr Advani said he wanted to meet Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh to win their support for the bill.
The senior BJP leader who has largely remained silent since he was assigned a mentor's role after the party came to power in 2014, recently drew attention with a sudden outburst in parliament over disruptions, when he said, "I feel like resigning".