Congress' R Sudha writes to Om Birla, seeks probe into Opposition protest visuals on social media

The visuals were unauthorisedly captured by a Treasury bench MP or unauthorisedly released by Sansad TV.

New Delhi: Congress MP R Sudha has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking a probe into visuals of Opposition MPs' protest in the Lower House that has made into social media, claiming that they were either "unauthorisedly" video graphed by a Treasury bench MP or broadcasted by Sansad TV.

The Mayiladuthurai MP said that the video graphing proceedings of the Parliament or sharing unreleased footage of proceedings by Sansad TV would amount to grave misconduct and breach of parliamentary privilege.

She requested the Speaker to refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges or a specially constituted Inquiry Committee and those guilty be meted out appropriate punishment.

In her letter to Birla on July 5, Sudha said that she was endorsing a post by a journalist on 'X' which showed a video of Opposition protest in Lok Sabha on July 1.

"As may be seen from the angle from which the video has been shot, it is either from the Treasury benches or has been allegedly 'obtained' from Sansad TV," she said.

A number of handles on 'X' had shared video clippings of Opposition protests, which the Congress leaders said were not the footages of Sansad TV which were broadcast.

Only Sansad TV is allowed to videograph Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha proceedings.

Sudha also shared details of two incidents where MPs faced punishment for videographing parliamentary processes and proceedings.

Referring to an incident during the 16th Lok Sabha, she said that the then AAP MP Bhagwant Mann had videographed the process of Zero Hour notice ballot in the Parliamentary Notice office as also how he entered the Parliament House.

The matter was taken seriously and was referred by the Speaker to a specially constituted inquiry committee to investigate and Mann was suspended for the remainder of that session after the committee submitted its report, Sudha said.

Similarly, she said, Congress MP Rajani Patil, who videographed a part of the proceedings and posted it on social media, was suspended for around three months with a committee on privileges investigating it.

"In the present case, the instant case of unauthorised videographing of proceedings of the Lok Sabha on July 1 and uploading the same on social media is tantamount to grave misconduct and breach of privilege and contempt of the House," she said.