The Congress on February 9, 2023 objected to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar’s decision to expunge portions of party president and Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge’s speech on Wednesday, saying that he did not use any unparliamentary words and the deleted expression had earlier been employed by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself.
The Trinamool Congress, the second largest Opposition party, was also critical of the decision and accused the Chair of indulging in censorship.
On Thursday, minutes after the day’s proceeding started, Congress members questioned Mr. Dhankhar’s rationale behind removing several parts of Mr. Kharge’s speech, including a word from the poem he had quoted. Many of them repeated the expunged phrase.
Mr. Kharge said, “I neither used any unparliamentary word or language nor made any allegation on anyone,” he said. “Yet you pick out some words... I won’t say you misinterpreted them but if you had any doubt you could have sought clarification in a different fashion.” Instead, six different parts of speech were expunged, he said.
Later, Mr. Kharge wrote a strongly worded letter to Mr. Dhankhar detailing his objections. In his letter, that was made public by the Congress, Mr. Kharge wrote, “The institution of Parliament of India is a platform to fix the accountability of the executive. This necessitates that the policies and the decisions of the government are discussed, dissected and debated on the floor of the House. Any criticism of policies and decisions of the government their fallouts can not be construed as the allegation against any individual member of the House.”
He also protested against Mr. Dhankhar’s repeated directions during his speech to “authenticate” his comment. Quoting Article 105 of the Constitution, Mr. Kharge said that a member is only required to authenticate any document that he lays on the table of the House.
“There is no convention or provision of authentication of points made in a speech on the floor of the House. Any direction or rule of House cannot subvert the Constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech,” he said.
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It would be “inversion” of the system of governance, Mr. Kharge said, if the Opposition members are expected to carry out complete investigation, gather evidence and then raise the matter on the floor of the House.
Trinamool floor leader Derek O’Brien, backing the Congress stance, said, “Clearly, there is censorship under way in Parliament. During Prime Minister’s address to the House today the camera did not once pan on the Opposition members who were protesting. And the transcripts of our speeches are being tampered with.”
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