Kieron Rijiju Accused MPs of storming Lok Sabha Speaker on Wednesday
About Birlaroom and insulted him.
“At least 20 to 25 MPs entered the Lok Sabha Speaker’s chamber and abused him. I was there too. Speaker is a very weak person otherwise drastic action would be taken. Senior Congress leaders including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and KC Venugopal were also present and encouraged them to fight,” Rijiju told reporters.
Rijiju alleged that the MPs not only misbehaved with the Speaker but also violated parliamentary norms.
“They went to the speaker’s chamber to insult him and say bad things. Then the speaker made a ruling but it was not followed and then
Rahul Gandhi That he didn’t need anyone’s permission to speak. He will speak as he wishes, without any rules… Members cannot speak on the floor of the House except with the permission of the President. Even the Prime Minister can speak only with the permission of the Chairman. Everyone can speak only with permission,” he added.
The new charges come amid an escalating standoff between the government and the parliamentary opposition. Opposition parties on Tuesday filed a notice seeking the removal of Om Birla as Speaker of the Lok Sabha, accusing him of acting in a “blatantly partisan” manner and asking him to recuse himself from presiding over the House until the issue is resolved.
The opposition leader also accused Birla of making “false accusations” against MPs after he referred to certain “unexpected actions” in the Lok Sabha and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to go to the House to reply to the motion of thanks for the President’s address.
The BJP, however, strongly criticized the opposition’s notice against Birla, saying it was an attempt to undermine the parliamentary machinery.
On Tuesday, Rijiju claimed that the situation in the Lok Sabha could become unstable if BJP MPs are allowed to confront Congress MPs on the day when the Prime Minister is scheduled to give his reply to the debate.
He posted video footage of the February 4 meeting, showing opposition female lawmakers approaching the finance minister’s table in a heated exchange. Rijiju questioned whether this behavior was justified and accused the opposition parties of disrupting the proceedings of the House of Representatives in an unprecedented manner.
The minister claimed that the BJP and NDA MPs were “very angry” over the MP’s behavior but remained restrained.
There has been continued disruption in the Assembly since February 2 when Congress president Rahul Gandhi was banned by the chairman from writing an article quoting excerpts from the “unpublished memoirs” of former Army Chief MM Naravane.
Chaos came to a head on February 4 when the prime minister was unable to reply to a motion of thanks due to protests from the opposition. In a rare development, the motion of thanks was passed on February 5 without the customary reply from the prime minister. The Speaker read out the motion and it was passed by voice vote amid chants from opposition members.