BJP mocking people of India, says Sonia

Congress president Sonia Gandhi told a party meeting this morning that the Bharatiya Janata Party was mocking the people of India.

She said the main opposition party had scant respect for Parliament, and that the government was ready for discussion on the coal block allocations.

Addressing the general body meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Gandhi said blackmail had become the "bread and butter" of the opposition.

This was the party president's first interaction with party MPs after the coal controversy broke out with the Comptroller & Auditor General's assessment of huge losses to the government through the allocation of coal blocks to companies between 2004 and 2008, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was directly overlooking the coal portfolio.

Criticising the opposition for holding Parliament to ransom, Gandhi urged her partymen to fight the intemperate politics of opposition.

"We have nothing to hide or to be defensive about," she said.