In a letter to Speaker Om Birla on Thursday, the Congress MPs in the Lok Sabha expressed their displeasure with how Rahul Gandhi’s comments during the discussion of the vote of no-confidence were removed from the record. The party also demanded that Gandhi’s speech’s deleted words be added back in.
Following his reinstatement as an MP, Rahul Gandhi made his first speech in Parliament on Wednesday during the no-confidence motion, during which he claimed that the BJP government had ‘murdered Bharat Mata’ in the violent state of Manipur.
The Lok Sabha members stated in the letter that it is puzzling why the Speaker decided to remove the term ‘murder’ from the phrase ‘murder of Bharat Mata,’ adding that it was obviously ‘used in a metaphorical context.’
The document went on to say that the use of expressions like ‘murder of democracy’ or ‘murder of Bharat Mata’ is ‘not tantamount to a personal accusation of a defamatory nature, unlike the language used by Shri Nishikant Dubey the previous day, which was expunged and then restored to the record.’
‘The Directions of the Speaker provide, in clause 115(3), that the Speaker may seek and accept clarifications from the Members concerned about his remarks. Given such clarification, the expunction may be reversed,’ the letter further added.
The Congress stated that ‘expunction in Rahul Gandhi’s case is incomprehensible’ after pointing out that a number of other speakers in the Parliament, including Union Minister Smriti Irani, used the term ‘murder’ in their statements without having it removed.
In order for Rahul Gandhi’s remarks to be accurately published and understood, the members asked the Speaker to add the words that were deleted back in.
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