NEW DELHI, May 5: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led opposition on Thursday of spreading the lie that his government had tried to block a meeting between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee here last month. Intervening in a discussion in the half empty Rajya Sabha due to the opposition’s boycott, Dr Singh said he had personally spoken to three senior BJP leaders to try to persuade them to come back to the house even though they had been unkind to him on several issues, including the Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting.

“The way the proceedings of the parliament have been disrupted over the past two weeks has caused me and my government great dismay. There is no resolution of the impasse. It is not for want of trying on the part of the government or myself,” Dr Singh said. He said he had personally spoken to Lal Krishan Adjani, Jessant Singh and Mr Vajpayee, telling them: “Let us end this chapter, and all issues can be discussed on the floor of the house.”

One of the three leaders, who he said he would not name, had promised to reconsider the boycott but that had not happened, Dr Singh said. “Therefore, the allegation that the house is not able to function because of anything the government has done, is not borne out by facts, he said.

He criticized the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance for using unkind language against him in a memorandum they had presented to President A. P. J. Abdul Kalama. “In that memorandum our government has been accused of prevailing upon President Musharraf not to see Sheri Vajpayee. This is totally false,” Dr Singh said.

“This is the length to which the opposition goes. I think the country should know that between the two, what they say and what they do, there is a world of difference,” he said, adding the government was prepared to discuss all the issues, including President Musharraf’s meeting with Mr Vajpayee, if and when the opposition returned to the house.

The parliament’s budget session is due to end on May 13. Pakistani diplomats have denied there was any official obstruction in the meeting between President Musharraf and Mr Vajpayee on April 18, shortly before the president’s departure for Manila.

They have said the Indian foreign ministry had in fact facilitated Gen Musharraf’s meetings not only with Mr Vajpayee but also with Mr Advani.