NEW DELHI: Taking to a tit-for-tat strategy in a bid to counter the ruling BJP’s offensive in Parliament, the Congress on Thursday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP MP Anurag Thakur had made “factually incorrect, inaccurate and misleading statements’’ in the House.
The letter to the Speaker was written by Congress MP Manickam Tagore who requested that provisions of Direction 115(1) be invoked and “requisite proceedings be initiated and appropriate action be taken in this regard”. Under Direction 115(1), any MP wishing to highlight an inaccuracy in a statement made by another MP has to write to the Speaker before raising the matter in Parliament.
The Congress move came after the BJP created an uproar over Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s address in the Lok Sabha. Several portions of his speech were expunged and the BJP submitted a notice against the inaccuracies. The notice was submitted by BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj. Commenting on the notice, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said any member trying to mislead the House won’t get away easily and ``rules will get them.’’
The Congress letter alleged that the prime minister said in his speech in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that the “Congress made a false promise of Rs 8,500 per month to women”. The Virudhunagar MP wrote, “It was a promise [to be fulfilled] on victory and government formation.”
The Congress also contested PM Modi’s statement that the “Congress vote share has gone down in 16 states which it contested alone”. The party said: “This is factually incorrect. Congress vote share increased in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Telangana etc.’’
The Opposition party termed as “grossly misleading” the prime minister’s statement that “no bullet proof jackets [were provided] for the Army during the Congress’s time”. “There was a shortage of jackets, not that jackets were not there. Even police had bullet proof jackets like in Mumbai attacks,” the letter read.
He also challenged the prime minister over the claim that the Congress didn’t give fighter jets to the Army. “We had Jaguar, Mig 29, SU- 30, Mirage 2000,” the letter read. Tagore also pointed out alleged inaccuracies in Thakur’s July 1 speech in the Lok Sabha.
The Congress MP said Thakur claimed that the Army was not given arms and fighter jets when the party ruled the country.
“We had Jaguar, Mig 29, SU- 30, Mirage 2000....We had nuclear bombs, missiles like Agni, Prithvi, Aakash, Nag, Trishul and later Brahmos,” he said.
Tagore also dubbed as “factually incorrect” Thakur’s remarks that PM Modi has not taken a single holiday and asked which category of leave is taken for election campaigns.