Uproar over Kharge’s ‘unparliamentary’ remark in RS, says sorry, clarifies

Pradhan had accused Tamil Nadu’s DMK government of being “dishonest” and playing “politics” with the future of the state’s students. While criticising the DMK government’s opposition to the NEP, he also accused it of doing a “U-turn” over PM-SHRI schools.

Amid protest from Opposition members Tuesday, Deputy Chairman Harivansh, who was presiding over the proceedings, called Congress MP Digvijay Singh to initiate a discussion on the working of the Education Ministry.

Kharge, who is also the Congress president, however, stood up to intervene. But the Chair said that Kharge had already been given an opportunity to speak in the morning, and added that it was Singh’s turn to speak.

Kharge then used an expression in Hindi and said that the Opposition was ready for a discussion on the Education Ministry and would “corner” the government, which led to an uproar from the Treasury benches that claimed that the expression was “unparliamentary”.

Leader of the House and Union Health Minister J P Nadda intervened and called the Hindi expression used by Kharge condemnable and demanded that he should apologise.

“The language used by the Leader of Opposition, the aspersions on the Chair, is condemnable… This is to be condemned by one and all. The words and language used for the Chair is unpardonable, still he should apologise and the word should be expunged,” he said.

Kharge immediately apologised for using the expression and also clarified that it was not meant for the Chair but for government policies. “I am sorry, I was not speaking about you (the Chair), it was about government policies. I am sorry if you were hurt by my remarks, I apologise to you,” he said.

“You are hurting the self-respect of a part of this country and people… The minister should be asked to resign. They are talking about dividing and breaking the country,” Kharge said.

Though Nadda appreciated Kharge’s gesture to apologise, but said that the remarks are still condemnable if they were meant for the government.

Earlier in the day, RS proceedings were adjourned after Opposition MPs protested in the Well of the House alleging that delimitation would result in reduction of seats for southern states. Opposition MPs gave notices under Rule 267, seeking setting aside of the listed business of the day to take up a discussion on concerns of southern states over delimitation. The notices were rejected by the Chair.

DMK member R Girirajan managed to raise the issue through a Zero Hour mention, following which the MPs started shouting slogans and reached the Well of the House.

Girirajan claimed that states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Punjab that had implemented family planning would stand to lose seats in Parliament and that states with poor family planning programmes and higher fertility rates like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan would gain many seats transferred from better performing states.

Opposition MPs including TMC’s Mohammed Nadimul Haque, Sagarika Ghose, Dola Sen and Sushmita Dev, BJD’s Sasmit Patra and Sulata Deo, Congress’s Pramod Tiwari, Syed Naseer Hussain and Ajay Maken and Priyanka Chaturvedi of Shiv Sena (UBT) and AAP’s Shaktisinh Gohil and Sanjay Singh also gave notice to discuss alleged duplicate voter ID cards.