Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar conducts proceedings as LoP Mallikarjun Kharge speaks in the House during the Winter session of Parliament.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Rajya Sabha on Friday witnessed acrimonious scenes with BJP claiming that the Opposition is insulting “farmer’s son” Jagdeep Dhankhar with a no-trust motion and Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge retorting that he is a “son of an agriculture worker” while accusing the Chairman of “purposely encouraging” the ruling side against them.
The war of words ended with the House adjourning for the day, 48 minutes into the Zero Hour after Dhankhar claiming that the Opposition's “campaign is against the category to which I belong” and Kharge saying that how can he respect a Chairman who does not respect him and continuously insult the Opposition.
The trouble started soon after the official papers were laid on the Table of the House with the Chairman allowing BJP MP Radha Mohan Das Aggarwal to raise a point of order over the issue of Opposition notice to remove Dhankhar as Vice-President.
Aggarwal urged Dhankhar to take action on the breach of privilege notice submitted by him against the Opposition MPs, including Kharge who have raised questions about the impartiality of the Chairman in public, while alleging that former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru used to misbehave and insult then President Dr Rajendra Prasad.
After Aggarwal, who spoke for nine minutes levelling allegations against the Congress, Dhankhar allowed BJP's Surender Singh Nagar, Neeraj Shekhar and Kiran Chowdhury for three minutes each during which they claimed that that the Congress was insulting a “farmer’s son”, who has risen to the post of Vice-President.
As Congress Deputy Leader Pramod Tiwari said they were proud of the Leader of Opposition who is a Dalit and a farmer, Dhankhar said, “I am a farmer's son, I will not show weakness, I will die for the country, perish for the country.”
Kharge accused the Chairman of “purposely encouraging” ruling party MPs to speak against the Opposition and added, “If you are farmer's son, I am the son of an agriculture worker...You are insulting the leadership of the Congress. It is your responsibility to run the House. We are not sitting here to listen to the praises showered on you (by ruling MPs).”
Dhankhar then retorted that he knows who Kharge wants to praise. He said, “Day in and day out there is only a campaign against the Chairman. It is a campaign not against me, It is a campaign against the category to which I belong. I am personally pained for a reason…”
“They are entitled to bring a motion against me. This is their constitutional right but they are deviating from the constitutional provisions. I have gone through everything that is projected through the public domain. Why cannot we follow the Constitution?” he said.
Dhankhar then invited both Leader of House J P Nadda and Kharge for a meeting at noon to bring an end to this logjam in Parliament with an open mind. "Running the House is important for the nation, important for the country, important for the society," he said.
Congress Rajya Sabha Chief Whip Jairam Ramesh said, “Today was a carefully and noisily orchestrated adjournment of the Rajya Sabha by the BJP. The Leader of the Opposition was not allowed to speak. The conduct of today's proceedings reinforced what the I.N.D.I.A. parties have said in the unprecedented no-confidence motion against the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, submitted on December 10.”