Wednesday, April 27 2005 12:23 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee expressed unhappiness over National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) boycott of the all-party meeting convened by him today (Apr 27, 2005) to find a way out of the impasse following the Opposition decision not to attend the House for three days to vent its unhappiness over various issues.

"We want Opposition to be present in the House and participate in the discussions," he told reporters in New Delhi.

He repeated his appeal to the Opposition to reconsider its decision to boycott the House when deputy leader of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) V K Malhotra informed him over phone that NDA would not be attending today's meeting.

Chatterjee had also spoken to leader of the Opposition, L K Advani requesting him to reconsider the decision and attend the House.

Among those who attended the meeting included Railway Minister Laloo Prasad, who has been in the centre of controversy over his remarks on the recent train accident in Gujarat, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader K Yerrannaidu, leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee, Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Gurudas Dasgupta of Communist Party of India (CPI) and Basudeb Acharia of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM).