Cong ticks off hot-headed MP, seeks report from APCC

The party also termed the incident as ‘regrettable’ and publicly ticked off the hot-headed MP stating that more dignified behaviours were expected from people in public offices.

Soon after the footage of the Congress MP’s on-camera misdemeanour was aired by the TV channels, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) asked the party’s unit in Andhra Pradesh to probe into the incident and send a report to the party high-command.

“It (the incident) is most unfortunate. I do not think anybody should indulge in such things...Members of Parliament should be more responsible and he (Jagannath) should not have done it,” said the Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily.

Moily, a permanent invitee in the Congress Working Committee, is in charge of the party’s affairs in Andhra Pradesh.

He said the AICC had asked the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) to carry out a thorough probe into the incident and send a report to him. Sources in the Congress said that the party president Sonia Gandhi herself was “very unhappy” over the incident and her political secretary Ahmed Patel asked Moily to look into it.

“The incident is regrettable. People occupying public offices should behave in a much more dignified manner,” the AICC spokesman and Jagannath’s fellow MP in the Lok Sabha, Manish Tiwari told the routine news-conference in the evening. He said the party would take appropriate action after receiving and studying the report from the APCC. “There are in-house mechanisms within the party to deal with such cases (of misconduct by party-men) and, I am sure, appropriate actions will be taken after the report comes and is perused by the leadership,” he said.