Yechury-Jaitley war over ' TV opportunity'

CPM leader Sitaram Yechury on Monday got an assurance from Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P J Kurien that no one accused fellow members with raising issues for “TV opportunity”.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had accused Yechury of taking up the Lalitgate issue for the sake of TV opportunity.

Yechury wanted that chair should give his ruling on the remark made by Jaitley. The Deputy Chairman said that he needed some time to examine the issue. The issue which had prompted Jaitley to make the remark against Yechury was the latter’s objection to the minister reading out the notice of Congress’ deputy leader Anand Sharma on July 23.

Yechury had objected that Jaitley should not have read the notice as the Chair had not given any ruling on it. Jaitley had quoted rule-book to assert that nothing was wrong in doing so.

The issue of whether Jaitley did the right thing in referring to notice was also debated on Monday. Yechury wanted a ruling on what was said against him. Jaitley avoided speaking on the issue and limited himself over the validity of reading Sharma’s notice.  However, the discussion again became interesting when Jaitley remarked that the interpretation made in the House would be “violence to the English language”. Yechury said that one more allegation is being made that he is “violent” to English  language. Kurien said, “I am not master of English to judge it.”