A statement by Congress MP and former Cabinet Minister Kumari Selja on Monday that she had faced discrimination at a temple in Gujarat a few years ago because she was a Dalit, saw the government disputing her account 48 hours later. The result: the Rajya Sabha was plunged into chaos after Ms Selja stuck to her version and the Opposition demanded that the government withdraw the statement and apologise to her.
On Wednesday morning, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is also the Leader of the Upper House, produced a page of the visitors’ book of the Dwarkadheesh temple in which she had lauded the “excellent” arrangements: Ms Selja pointed out that in her speech on Monday itself, she had clarified that she was not referring to the main Dwarkadheesh temple but to BetDwarka, a smaller temple in Dwarka. To make matters worse, even as Mr.Jaitley quoted the visitor’s book and Ms.Selja countered it, Power Minister Piyush Goyal leapt up to describe her statement as an instance of “manufactured problems” and “manufactured discrimination”.
The House remained gridlocked for the greater part of the day, with the Congress, backed by most other Opposition parties, insisting that the ruling party should withdraw its comments made against Ms Selja and offer her an apology. MoS for Parliamentary Affairs Mukthar Abbas Naqvi suggested that comments made by both sides should be expunged, but this was not accepted by the Congress. To this, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, descrining Mr Goyal’s statement as “totally uncalled for”, said that “this was almost like calling her (Selja) a liar… But this is a self goal. Leader of the House made a statement and the matter should have ended there. Why cast aspersions and call her names.”
After Congress MPs led by Ms Selja entered the well of the House shouting “Narendra Modi maafi mango (Modi apologise) and Narendra Modi hai hai”, disrupted proceedings, Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien called leaders of various parties to his chamber to find a solution after adjourning the House for some time. Those who attended the meeting included Mr.Jaitley, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and leaders of some other parties apart from Ms Selja.
Political sources present at the meeting told The Hindu that the government suggested that since Mr Jaitley’s remarks had been countered by Ms Selja, they cancelled each other out. When the meeting ended inconclusively, the discussion was on whether Mr Goyal should be made to withdraw his remarks “with regret” or “without regret”. The government does not wish to express regret; the Congress is insisting that an apology – or at least regret – must be expressed.
The matter will be taken up now on Thursday, as the House wanted to take up the issue of the Tamil Nadu floods on an urgent basis.
BJP sources said that the party, was stung to the quick as Ms Selja’s comments on Monday amounted to a criticism of Gujerat, the state that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ruled till mid-2014 and therefore had to be countered. Asked whether it made sense to annoy the Congress at a time when the government was trying to make peace with it to get the controversial GST Bill through, a senior leader said, “It was necessary as we have a constituency outside Parliament as well.”
