The bitterness of the recently concluded Winter Session of Parliament is likely to spill over into the Budget Session at the end of the month with Rajya Sabha chairperson M. Venkaiah Naidu forwarding a privilege notice against Congress president Rahul Gandhi to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for consideration.
Mr. Naidu opined that there is a prima facie case of breach of privilege. Mr. Gandhi is a member of the Lok Sabha and hence the notice was forwarded to the Speaker of that House.
Senior BJP MP Bhupendra Yadav had raised an issue of breach of privilege last month against Mr. Gandhi. In his notice, Mr Yadav had said that Mr. Gandhi twisted the spelling of Mr. Jaitley’s surname to ‘Jaitlie’ and it was highly derogatory.
This was after Mr. Jaitley had issued a clarification on the floor of the House over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech during the Gujarat elections and alleged derogatory references to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Mr. Gandhi had tweeted: “Dear Mr Jaitlie (sic)- thank you for reminding India that our PM never means what he says or says what he means.”
Sources in the Rajya Sabha chairperson’s office said that the “the breach of privilege stands on the grounds that it imputed motives to the intent, character and conduct of the Leader of the House Arun Jaitley by the way the spelling of Mr. Jaitley has been twisted (it was spelt as Jaitlie in Mr. Gandhi’s tweets).”
“The tweet made comment which was very derogatory and highly unbecoming on the part of Rahul Gandhi and it deliberately misinterpreted the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha in order to malign the Government. Finally, it affronted the dignity of the House besides attempting at obstructing the House in performance of its functions by vitiating the political atmosphere, as the statement read by Mr Jaitley was part of solution worked out by the government and opposition to resolve difficulties in running the House and had been agreed upon by all,” said the source.
Mr. Naidu had last week, on receipt of the notice of breach of privilege said that it was being examined. “I will have to examine it and take a view. One thing I should advise everybody is that a solemn agreement had been reached between the Leader of the House [Jaitley] as well as the Leader of the Opposition [Ghulam Nabi Azad]. All other people have also endorsed it. Anybody outside commenting on that agreement… That is not fair and good for the House and also our system. But I will be going through the privilege motion and take an appropriate decision,” Mr. Naidu had said.
