New Delhi: The direction of the increasingly sharp confrontation between the ruling party and the opposition in the parliamentary committee formed on the Wakf Amendment Bill will now depend on the intervention of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. The opposition coalition INDIAA MPs have lodged their protest by complaining to the Speaker against JPC Chairman BJP MP Jagdambika Pal, accusing him of taking one-sided biased decisions.

The opposition members in the JPC have also questioned Pal's decision to visit Karnataka and some other places to study the Waqf Bill and called it arbitrary. After meeting the Speaker, the opposition MPs claimed that Birla listened to them patiently and assured them of taking a decision on this soon.

A letter jointly signed by the opposition members of the JPC has also been submitted to the Speaker, in which deep concern has been expressed by citing examples of Pal's alleged biased attitude while presiding over the meetings. Opposition MPs met Birla after coming out of the JPC meeting on Tuesday.

Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee described the conversation with the Speaker as positive and said that he has assured to consider our points. DMK leader A Raja and AAP MP Sanjay Singh, who were part of the delegation of opposition MPs, also described the meeting as fruitful and expressed hope that the deadlock would be resolved with the intervention of the Speaker.

After meeting the speaker, the opposition camp has clearly indicated that any decision on separation from the JPC will be taken after seeing Birla's stance. It is understood that the letter handed over to the speaker has the signatures of all the opposition MPs, including Mohammad Javed and Imran Masood of Congress, Kalyan Banerjee of Trinamool Congress, A Raja of DMK, Sanjay Singh of AAP and Asaduddin Owaisi of AIMIM, who are part of the JPC.

The letter has raised serious questions on the modus operandi of Pal from fixing the dates of JPC meetings to calling witnesses and has also accused him of taking unilateral decisions. The opposition MPs urged the Speaker to direct the JPC Chairman to hold formal consultations with the members of the committee before taking decisions on such issues.

The opposition has not taken any immediate decision to leave the JPC against the working style of Jagadambika Pal but has kept the option open. According to the opposition MPs, Pal and BJP members are preventing us from expressing our views and raising questions in the meetings and if this does not stop, we will be forced to leave the JPC.