Amid the logjam in Parliament, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met Speaker Om Birla Wednesday morning and told him that the Congress wants the House to function, besides asking him to consider the party’s demand of expunging the “derogatory” remarks against him. Speaking to reporters after meeting Birla, Rahul said: “I met the Speaker, and I told him that our party is saying that the derogatory comments about me should be expunged. The Speaker said he will examine them. See, they keep levelling all kinds of allegations. But we have decided. And it is my thinking that whatever provocation they do, we will let them. But we will run the House. But it will be our attempt that the House is run.” “We want debate and discussion to happen. On December 13, there was a commitment to have a debate on the Constitution. We want that debate to happen. They can say anything about me. They can. On December 13, there will be debate,” he added. A special discussion on the Constitution is scheduled in the Lok Sabha on December 13 and 14, and in the Rajya Sabha on December 16 and 17. On the allegations that the Congress’s top leadership has links with Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist and investor George Soros, he said: “They don’t want discussion on Adani. They want to distract from Adani, but eventually we will not let it be. They can level allegations, but we want the House to run. It is not our responsibility to run the House, but we are saying that we will run the House.” While the Congress has been demanding a discussion on allegations against industrialist Gautam Adani, the BJP has hit back, accusing the Congress’s top leadership of collusion with Soros in a bid to destabilise the country. Demands by the two parties for discussions on the issues have meant that both houses of Parliament have not been functional during the ongoing Winter Session. The Opposition parties on Tuesday submitted a notice to move a no-confidence motion against Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, while the BJP accused the Congress of using it as a diversionary tactic to distract people from the issue of its links with Soros.
