This is an archive article published on April 4, 2025

House seems to have become Modi’s durbar, only his praise allowed: Congress

Tarun Gogoi said the Opposition was demanding an adjournment motion regarding the 27% tariff imposed by the US, which has “shaken the stock market”, but it was not allowed.

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Congress LS Deputy Leader Gaurav Gogoi

4 min readNew DelhiApr 5, 2025 03:32 AM IST First published on: Apr 4, 2025 at 07:57 PM IST

With Speaker Om Birla criticising former Congress president and RS MP Sonia Gandhi’s remark that the Waqf Amendment Bill was “bulldozed” through Parliament, the Congress Friday said that during the Budget session, it seems that the House is slowly turning into PM Narendra Modi’s “durbar”.

At a press conference at the Akbar Road party office, Congress Lok Sabha Deputy Leader Gaurav Gogoi said: “The House seems to have become Prime Minister Modi’s durbar. His (Modi) praise is permitted, but when it comes to constructive criticism of the government’s policies, then the government adjourns the House through its tactics. They run away from answering questions. All Opposition parties were worried. We told this to the Speaker as well and met him, but despite that we have seen no change in the House. We weren’t allowed to discuss the issue of US tariffs.”

Gogoi pointed out that Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju referred to the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting held outside the House and said that according to established ruling and precedent, it is “not appropriate to raise remarks that have been made outside the House”.

Objecting to Speaker Om Birla’s remark, Gogoi said, “Comments were made by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister while the Lok Sabha Speaker also commented on it. This is a serious issue concerning the rules and procedures of Parliament.”

After Rijiju said that some MPs came to him and said that a member of the other House has alleged that the (Waqf) “Bill was bulldozed through without discussion” and requested the Speaker to “give an appropriate ruling”, Birla said “it was not right” that an MP “raised questions on the House”. “It is not right. It is also not in accordance with parliamentary traditions,” he said, without naming Sonia Gandhi.

Gogoi also said the Opposition was demanding an adjournment motion regarding the 27% tariff imposed by the US, which has “shaken the stock market”, but it was not allowed.

“Narendra Modi and Amit Shah had said ‘invest in the stock market’, but today people have suffered losses. Narendra Modi, with his 56-inch chest, runs away from discussions in the House on the foreign ministry’s Demands for Grants,” he said.

Gogoi also said that a three-hour discussion on Manipur was supposed to be held in Rajya Sabha but it was wrapped up in less than an hour.

Referring to the resolution on President’s Rule in Manipur being taken up deep into the night, Gogoi said BJP prefers to work “in the darkness of night”.

“The Opposition’s arguments on the Waqf Bill had logic, passion and weight, which the BJP had no answer to,” he said, adding, “Though the numbers may have been in BJP’s favour, they lost to us in reasoning. They couldn’t say anything concrete in support of the Waqf amendment.”

Congress MP and Deputy Leader of Opposition in RS, Pramod Tiwari, alleged that it seems “fascism has become ingrained in BJP’s DNA”.

“Today, we were waiting for the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman to commence the proceedings. But even before that, the BJP, despite being the ruling party, started creating a ruckus in the House. The BJP is breaking the basic principles of democracy,” he said.