Union law minister Kiren Rijiju and Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha Harivansh on Tuesday slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his allegations that the “Opposition leaders’ microphones are often switched off in Parliament” terming the Wayanad MP’s statement.
Rejecting Gandhi’s allegations he made during an in-conversation session at the Chatham House think tank in London on Monday, Rijiju said the one who speaks the most says that they are not allowed to speak.
“Be it Rahul Gandhi or others, they keep abusing the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi from dawn to dusk. The one who speaks the most says that they are not allowed to speak,” news agency ANI quoted Rijiju as saying.
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During an event organised by veteran Indian-origin Opposition Labour Party MP Virendra Sharma in the Grand Committee Room within the House of Commons complex, Gandhi, in a lighter vein, used a faulty microphone in the room to make his point about what he described as a “stifling” Opposition debate in India.
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“Our mikes are not out of order, they are functioning, but you still can’t switch them on. That’s happened to me a number of times while I am speaking,” the 52-year-old Wayanad MP told the gathering, in response to a question about sharing his experience of being a politician in India with his counterparts in Britain.
Reacting to Gandhi’s claims, Harivansh said they are “absolutely false and baseless”.
“…I’d like to say it was absolutely false, baseless. Nothing can be more false than this. I have been in Parliament for the past nine years and not once have I heard anything like that from anyone…” ANI quoted Harivansh as saying.
“As far as I know, no one has ever said like this neither inside the Parliament nor outside…nothing can be more unverified than this,” he further added.
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In Cambridge, the Congress MP again alleged that the Opposition’s voice was being stifled in parliament.
Earlier, in a conversation with members of the Indian Journalists’ Association in London, the Wayanad MP called the recent raids conducted at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) offices across India a “suppression of voice”, alleging that BJP under its “new Idea of India” wants India to be “silent”.
