New Delhi, Oct 1 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday termed the ordinance to protect convicted lawmakers as "morally unacceptable" and said the government did not understand this basic thing while pushing for it.

"What happened on the issue of ordinance? What is morally unacceptable is politically unacceptable, and this government did not understand this basic thing," BJP leader Arun Jaitley told reporters here.

"You (the government) brought in a bill in parliament. When it could not be passed, you got the ordinance," Jaitley said, adding that one of the politicians (Lalu Prasad) whom the government aimed to save through the ordinance has already been convicted Monday.

A court in Ranchi Monday convicted Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and 44 others for what has come to be called fodder scam -- illegal withdrawal of millions of rupees from the then undivided Bihar's animal husbandry department in the early 1990s.