‘Compromised’: Rahul targets PM; Chair suspends 8 Opposition MPs for rest of session

Those suspended are Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Hibi Eden, Dean Kuriakose, Prasant Padole, Kiran Kumar Reddy and Manickam Tagore of the Congress and CPI(M)’s S Venkatesan. “These members were shouting slogans and tearing up papers on the floor of the House, so I am naming them all,” said BJP MP Dilip Saikia, who was in the Chair.

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Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju then moved the resolution to suspend the MPs for their “misconduct” and “utter disregard to the House and authority of the Chair through reaching the table of the Secretary General and other officers in the Well of the House and throwing papers on the Chair…”

Sources said the consensus in the Congress Parliamentary Party was that Gandhi should not yield as MPs had often quoted from books and articles, and that accepting the Chair’s direction could set a precedent that could affect all Opposition MPs.

Earlier, during the commotion, Tagore was heard asking the Chair, “What is this yaar?” Expressing his displeasure, TDP MP Krishna Prasad Tenneti, who was in the Chair at the time, shot back, saying, “What did you say just now? What is this ‘yaar’? This is Parliament, this is Lok Sabha, you cannot address the Chair by saying ‘yaar’.”

Hours later, the LoP wrote to Speaker Om Birla, saying he adhered to his direction to authenticate the magazine report but was still prevented from speaking in the House in violation of a “long-standing convention” of members quoting or referring to documents after authentication.

“By long-standing convention, including repeated rulings of past Speakers, a Member who wishes to refer to a document in the House is required to authenticate it and affirm responsibility for its contents. Once this requirement is fulfilled, the Speaker allows the Member to quote or refer to the document. Thereafter, it becomes the responsibility of the Government to respond, and the role of the Chair stands concluded. Preventing me from speaking in the Lok Sabha today not only violates this convention, but also gives rise to a serious concern that there is a deliberate attempt to prevent me, in my capacity as the Leader of the Opposition, from speaking on matters of national security,” Gandhi wrote.

Gandhi sharpens attack

In the last two days, Gandhi has sharpened the pitch, which sources in the party said was a deliberate strategy to target PM Modi. Be it over the Rafale fighter jet deal or alleged proximity between industrialist Gautam Adani and Modi, Gandhi has targeted the PM in the past, too, but without much electoral success.

“Modi is scared,” Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament. “The trade deal that was on pause for four months was suddenly clinched yesterday evening. Nothing has changed (in the deal). Modi and I know the reason. There is tremendous pressure on Modi. Modi’s image balloon, created by spending thousands of crores, could burst.”

Asked what the pressure was, the LoP said, “There is a case against Adani in the US. That is not targeting Adani, but it is targeting Modi’s financial structure. The second is the Epstein files. There is more matter in the Epstein files, that has not come out. So, because of this pressure, the entire country wants to know what is in the Epstein files that were not released completely. These are the two pressure points. The country should understand that the Prime Minister is compromised.”

The Ministry of External Affairs last Saturday rejected any suggestion of impropriety after the PM’s name surfaced in a reference contained in newly released US Justice Department files linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in his prison cell in August 2019. The MEA said that beyond the fact of PM’s official visit to Israel in July 2017, “the rest of the allusions in the email are little more than trashy rumination by a convicted criminal”.

Gandhi said the main issue is “that our Prime Minister has been made to compromise”. “What did and how it was done, the people of the country have to think. But for the first time in history, the Leader of the Opposition was not allowed to speak in the President’s Address.”

About the trade deal, the LoP alleged that the PM had sold out farmers. “And it was sold because he was compromised. He not just sold you, he sold the country. That is what I was not allowed to speak … Modi is scared because the people who made his image are now trying to burst it.”

Another pivot

Gandhi had been targeting the BJP government over “vote theft” charges for the past several months. But the issue, Congress leaders said, did not find traction on the ground. And before that, the Congress leader had tried to shape a social justice plank for the Congress, talking repeatedly about the need for breaching the 50% ceiling on reservation and holding a caste census.

Now there is a new turn. While the indication is that the party won’t back down, some leaders wondered whether disrupting the Lok Sabha would go down well with other Opposition parties. But that is a gamble the Congress leadership appears to have taken. As of now, the other Opposition parties are on the same page. When the Chair called on Samajwadi Party’s Naresh Uttam Patel, Trinamool Congress’s Satabdi Roy, and  DMK’s D M Kathir Anand to speak, they refused to do so.