Nishikant Dubey resumes his fight with Shashi Tharoor

The BJP MP said Tharoor is misusing the Standing Committee platform and violating the Speaker's advisory

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has demanded that he be shifted out of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology as he resumed his fight against the panel head Shashi Tharoor, accusing him of violating rules after the senior Congress MP questioned "reputable" companies in giving advertisements to "toxic" news channels.

In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the BJP MP said that Tharoor is misusing the Standing Committee platform and violating the Speaker's advisory with his "Catch the Media Attention" campaign.

Dubey claimed that Tharoor's tweets on Sunday questioning corporates about the funding to the channels have “compromised the Confidentiality Clause” given in the Speaker’s Direction for the parliamentary panels.

Tharoor said in a tweet, "Should such reputable companies be financing hate through ads on RepulsiveTV?: Raymonds, MuthootGroup, Jio, MaxBupa, Kent, AirIndia, Star Health Insurance, Nissan, Dabur, Mahindra, Amazon, Samsung, Sony, Maruti, Nerolac, Toyota. Can they find the moral courage to be like Parle?"

“These are no better since they pay for news on TimesNow: Cadbury, Toyota, Hyundai, Nerolac, Birla Group, Amul, Skoda, Mercedes, Ceat, Samsung, Bluestar, HDFC, Sony, TCS. They “fund the toxicity, the hatred and bigotry, which our news channels spew 24×7,” Tharoor added.

Dubey's letter came as the IT committee is looking into the Television Rating Points (TRP) scam after the Mumbai police claimed that three news channels manipulated the numbers in their favour.

Dubey wrote, "since the conduct of Tharoor has now become incorrigible I – being a public representative for the third consecutive term – feel pained and therefore, to request your good self to kindly consider nominating me to some other committee so that I would once again be able to participate in the deliberations of the Parliamentary Committee in an effective manner."

Taking exception to Tharoor referring Republic TV as 'Repulsive TV', he said in the letter, "it is also an abject display of truant behaviour on the part of Dr Tharoor to abusively call the Republic TV as Repulsive TV ‘ and also making unsubstantiated insinuations and rant against various reputable Companies / Entities like Raymonds, Air India, Maruti, Dabur, etc."

Sources said that the issue of TRP was not taken up in the panel and Tharoor's remarks on channels did not violate confidentiality clause. They also said that Dubey did not attend the meetings after the panel was reconstituted in September this year by retaining Tharoor as its Chairperson.

However, Dubey countered it in a tweet. He wrote that Tharoor is "incorrigible, the committee is discussing TRP, his tweets will be part. Please tell him to read Direction 55 of the speaker which says don’t communicate its report or any conclusion arrived at, finally or tentatively before the report has been presented."