Bharatiya Janata Party leader V K Malhotra on Monday accused the Congress of wasting time during the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament.

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He also accused the main opposition party of not bringing out the Public Accounts Committee report on the alleged coffin scam only to keep the issue alive till the ensuing assembly elections.

Amidst protests in the Lok Sabha, he said the PAC 'deliberately' blamed the government for not making available the Central Vigilance Committee report on the matter and added that the Opposition was 'asking for the moon' since there was no report of the CVC which had dealt with arms purchases during the Kargil conflict.

The opposition had 'no alternative government' in mind but wanted to displace the Vajpayee government by 'hook or crook', he alleged and also accused them of having 'wasting' up to 40 per cent of time during the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament.

Malhotra said government business had taken only five per cent of the time during this session. To this, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Somnath Chatterjee hit back recalling the time when the House was stalled over the Bofors scam and the corruption charges against former Union minister Sukhram, when Vajpayee was the opposition leader.

Opposition members objected when Malhotra quoted certain observations of Speaker Manohar Joshi made at a meeting of party leaders. They said such observations could not be quoted in the House as these were not part of the proceedings, an argument supported by Deputy Speaker P M Sayeed who was in the Chair.

PTI