Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge asked why parts of his speech on Prime Minister Narendra Modi were scrubbed from Parliament records and claimed that even Atal Bihari Vajpayee had used the word against Narasimha Rao.
Kharge asked Rajya Sabha chairperson Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar why parts of his speech were expunged from parliament records. Eight references made by Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and linking him with an industrialist facing allegations among others were expunged from Parliament records.
Kharge had made the remarks during the debate on Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address on Wednesday night. This came a day after Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla ordered removing 18 references made by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on the same lines.
“I don’t think there was anything unparliamentary or accusatory against anyone in my speech… But a few words were misconstrued… If you had any doubt, you could have asked in a different way, but you have asked for my words in six places to be expunged,” he said in Rajya Sabha.
“[Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari] Vajpayee sahab had used a word against [Former Prime Minister PV] Narasimha Rao ji and that word is still in the books,” Kharge added.
Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar said he took the decisions as per the rules of the House and it was wrong to make sweeping statements that “everything was removed”.
In his speech, Kharge had questioned whether the exponential rise in industrialist Gautam Adani’s wealth was due to favours from the government.
Earlier on Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Modi government over the Hinderburg report and claimed that the rise in Adani’s fortunes happened after the BJP came to power in 2014. He also showed a photograph of PM Modi with Adani, prompting Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to intervene and stop the Congress leader from displaying the picture in the House.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey demanded action against Rahul Gandhi for using certain unverified, incriminatory and defamatory statements against PM Modi in Parliament. In a letter to Birla, Dubey alleged that Gandhi violated rules by “misleading the house” and accusing PM Modi of crony capitalism without documentary evidence.
