New Delhi, Jan. 31: The Congress has blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the confrontation between the government and the Opposition, seizing on a statement by Yashwant Sinha, which the BJP leader today said had been "misinterpreted".

"The Prime Minister doesn't believe in dialogue. He likes one-way communication, be it with his organisation or with the media... His arrogance and obstinacy is responsible for the situation of confrontation between the government and the Opposition," Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said today, signalling a stormy budget session of Parliament.

Sinha, who was finance minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government but has been sidelined by Modi, was quoted as saying in Goa yesterday that the "people of India will consign to dust those who do not believe in dialogue". Although he did not name anyone, the remark was believed to be aimed at the Modi government.

Participating in a conference titled Difficult Dialogues, Sinha had been asked about intolerance and the use of dialogue in today's "I, me, myself" culture.

The BJP leader said today that his comments had been misunderstood and misinterpreted. "When some people referred to some cases of intolerance, I reminded them of the imposition of the Emergency by Indira Gandhi and I said that people of this country taught her a lesson in 1977 because it is not in our spirit to be intolerant. It is not in our spirit to stifle dialogue, and therefore both democracy and dialogue are alive. That is what I said," Sinha told the news agency ANI.

The clarification did not discourage the Congress. Senior leader Anand Sharma said that in the past 20 months the Prime Minister had not made any attempt towards ushering in an atmosphere of constructive cooperation by reaching out to the Opposition.

"His style of functioning, his concentration of decision-making is proving detrimental to parliamentary democracy," Sharma said, when asked about Sinha's comments.

Party colleague Abhishek Singhvi took to Twitter to slam the BJP over Sinha's comments. "A party which has people like Shatru, Kirti, Yashwant and Joshi does not need any Opposition," Singhvi tweeted.

"Due to democratic structure put up by the Congress in 68 years, people not believing in democracy are today occupying the top posts," said another tweet from Singhvi, seen to be aimed at Modi.The BJP in a statement slammed the Opposition and said that despite its efforts, the Modi government had performed commendably in the last 20 months.

"The BJP believes in action and not acting. The Modi government is replying to the Opposition's baseless charges with performance," a party statement said.