New Delhi: Testifying before a Lok Sabha parliamentary panel in a complaint that he filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for a speech in which he accused PM Modi of being silent on financial irregularities of businessman Gautam Adani, because The Indian public had developed closeness to him. Party MP Nishikant Dubey demanded Gandhi’s expulsion from the house.
Dubey and Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi appeared before the Committee of Privileges on Friday to process the complaint. Dubey said the speech was “misleading, defamatory, unparliamentary and accusatory”, and filed a complaint against Gandhi during the first half of the budget session on 7 February.
The Committee of Privileges is headed by BJP MP Sunil Singh, and Dubey’s contention was that while Gandhi’s comments were removed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, there were publicly available videos of the speech, which included Gandhi and Congress officials. Youtube channel also included. “Not just one but three types of privileges apply to him, and he is a habitual offender and hence his membership should be terminated,” PTI quoted a source on Dubey.
However, some members of the committee, including Kodikunnil Suresh of the Congress and Kalyan Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress, opposed the demand for termination of Gandhi’s membership. The 14-member committee has BJP MPs Raju Bista, Dilip Ghosh and Rajeev Pratap Rudy and DMK’s TR Baalu.
During the statement, Dubey said that a precedent in a similar case was the expulsion of Subramanian Swamy from the Rajya Sabha in 1976. To prove that Gandhi’s allegations about Modi’s closeness with Adani were baseless, Dubey presented documents and reports to the committee. He said that since Modi is a member of the lower house and the leader of the ruling party, any allegation against him should have come with a notice.
