NEW DELHI: Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday regarding portions of his speech in the House that were expunged. He argued that removing his considered remarks from the records goes against the very tenets of parliamentary democracy and that they should be restored.
In his letter to the Speaker, Gandhi also cited BJP MP Anurag Thakur’s speech, saying it was full of allegations but surprisingly only one word was expunged from it. He stated: “This selective expunction defies logic.”
In his first speech as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Gandhi launched a no-holds-barred attack on the BJP, accusing the leaders of the ruling party of dividing people on communal lines. Certain remarks he made during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in the Lok Sabha on Monday were later expunged.
In his letter to Birla, Gandhi said that while the Chair derives powers to expunge certain remarks from the proceedings of the House, the stipulation is only for those kinds of words, the nature of which has been specified in Rule 380 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha.
“I am, however, shocked to note the manner in which considerable portions of my speech have been simply taken off from the proceedings under the garb of expunction,” the former Congress chief said.
“I am constrained to state that the portions expunged do not come under the ambit of Rule 380. What I sought to convey in the House is the ground reality and the factual position. Every member of the House who personifies the collective voice of people whom he or she represents has the freedom of speech as enshrined in Article 105(1) of the Constitution of India,” Gandhi said.
He asserted that it is every member’s right to raise people’s concerns on the floor of the House. “It is that right and in exercise of my obligations to the people of the country, that I was exercising yesterday,” he said. Speaking with reporters outside the Parliament complex, Gandhi said truth can be expunged in the world of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but not in reality.
“Whatever I had to say, I have said and that is the truth. They can expunge as much as they want, but the truth will prevail,” Gandhi said.