The Congress’s continued protests against the expunging of remarks made by party president Mallikarjun Kharge and MP Rahul Gandhi highlight a new tension between the Opposition and the government over expunged statements—a process that has not come in for criticism earlier.
On Sunday, Congress spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Singhvi accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of not running Parliament through “consensus, collaboration and concordance”, but through “clash, chaos, and conflict”.
“The autocratic and dictatorial face of the BJP was in full show in Parliament over the past few days. It displayed the most brazen, undemocratic and unparliamentary expunging of several remarks made by (Congress leader) Rahul Gandhi, (leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha) Mallikarjun Kharge, party leader Jairam Ramesh and the suspension of Rajani Patil,” Singhvi said.
The protests started after the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President’s speech last week when Gandhi and Kharge’s remarks were partially expunged and many allegations against the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were not made part of the official debate.
As per rules, the chair takes the final call on expunging remarks from official records. In this session, remarks of both Opposition and ruling MPs have been expunged. Once expunged, the exact phrase can’t be published anywhere.
Discontent at decisions taken in the House is not new in Parliament. In the 14th Lok Sabha, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee even wrote a letter to then speaker Somnath Chatterjee to object to the way the House was being run. In the recent past, some Congress MPs had alleged that their microphones were turned off to stop them from speaking in Parliament. On February 7, after Gandhi finished his speech targeting Modi over the Adani issue, speaker Om Birla addressed their concerns and said, “You should not complain outside that the speaker doesn’t allow you to speak.”
Last year, the suspension of 19 members from five opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha during the monsoon session turned out to be a key issue and massive protests disrupted proceedings frequently. This was the highest number of lawmakers to have been suspended from the Upper House one a single a day; in November 2021, during the winter session, 12 opposition MPs were suspended for the remainder of the session.
But for the first time, expunged remarks have become a bone of contention between the government and the Opposition. On Friday, Kharge stepped up the attack on the central government, accusing it of “hiding the truth by exerting undue pressure” on Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla.
After the two Congress leaders’ remarks were expunged, the party’s general secretary Jairam Ramesh tweeted, “Six references to the relationship between the PM & Adani made by LoP & Congress President @kharge -ji have been expunged. This is an undeclared but definite Aapaat Kaal.”
On Sunday, Congress indicated that the issue is not over, even as the first half of the session ends on Monday. Singhvi said, “They (BJP) want chaos, clash and conflict. Not a word in the speeches made in Parliament can justify the power of expunging. Was there a single word of unparliamentary language, any expletive, abuse, debasement of any institution, any objectionable word or phrase, defamatory language?”
“With the growth of electronic media and live telecast, the importance of expunged statements has lost its importance. When an MP speaks, his statement is telecast live and the issue goes viral,” said P Sreedharan, former secretary general of the Lok Sabha. “Yes, earlier, questions have never been raised over expunged remarks but now the bone of contention has arisen because of the topical importance of the subject mentioned by the members. I fear such incidents will happen more as the Opposition feels cornered at times.”
Reacting to Singhvi’s remarks, BJP national spokesperson Gopal Krishna Agarwal said: “Whenever there is any difference of opinion between them and the institutions, they start abusing and undermining the institution.”
With inputs from Anish Yande