Thursday, April 28 2005 08:17 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee last night (Apr 27, 2005) renewed his appeal to Opposition to end their boycott of the House.

"The Finance Bill will not be appropriately discussed in the absence of the Opposition," he said in his letter to leader of Opposition L K Advani.

He sincerely hoped that Advani would consider this request.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Opposition began a boycott of Parliament for three days from yesterday demanding resignation of Railway Minister Laloo Prasad and had even abstained from the meeting called by the Speaker yesterday morning.

The Speaker had made a request to deputy leader of BJP in Lok Sabha V K Malhotra when he had telephoned him yesterday morning to inform him that the NDA would not be attending the all party meeting convened by Somnath Chatterjee to resolve the issue.