Sack Shashi Tharoor from Parliamentary panel, BJP MP tells Lok Sabha Speaker

The ongoing spat between Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology Shashi Tharoor from Congress and panel member Nishikant Dubey from the BJP has kicked up a fresh storm on the "toolkit" issue with Dubey writing to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla accusing the panel head of "cantankerous, inane and rogue behaviour". He also sought not only his "sacking" from the position of panel Chairperson but also "disqualification from membership of Lok Sabha" under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India

TMC MP Mahua Moitra hit back tweeting, "Higher likelihood of @BJP MPs getting disqualified for fake MBA degrees & lying on affidavits than of Opposition MPs for twitter nomenclature of virus variants!". Tharoor, who has not commented on social media on Dubey's letter, retweeted Moitra's comments.

In his letter, Dubey is learnt to have said, "The Standing Committee is the extension of parliament but Mr. Shashi Tharoor has made this committee an extension of the Congress Party. Where he is more concerned about his party's and Rahul Gandhi’s agenda than the nation itself. Recently, on the Twitter toolkit controversy, he is asking for explanations from the Ministry of Information Technology when Twitter’s action is against this nation's IT law ... Tharoor is helping Twitter act against the government and the nation."

This happened on a day when a team of Delhi police visited Twitter India's offices to serve notice in the 'toolkit' case and determine the reason why Twitter categorised the toolkit-related tweets of BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as "manipulated media". The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology disapproved of Twitter's action and called it "prejudiced".

Tharoor had reportedly sent a letter to IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad slamming the police probe against Twitter. The Congress leader has also shared many posts on his Twitter account severely critical of the government.

Sources said that Dubey in a letter to Birla on May 24 drew his attention to the "recent jibes" of Tharoor on his Twitter account in which, according to the BJP MP, the Congress leader "surpassed all the boundaries of decency" expected from the chairperson of a Parliamentary Committee.

Also Read | Toolkit row: Delhi Police sends notice to 2 Congress leaders

On May 24, Tharoor had tweeted, "Still baffling that someone who won two elections by projecting himself as a strong decisive leader needs to blame previous govts for all problems & shed helpless tears. Wasn't PM the mastermind who was supposed to fix everything? Where does the buck stop for the last 7 years? (sic)"

Calling it a dangerous trend to allow such mischievous elements to continue to serve Parliament as a Chairperson of a Parliamentary Committee, Dubey accused Tharoor of "misusing his official position" to tarnish the image of the Central Government and raise issues in the panel that are outside its purview.

The BJP leader also flagged the "responsiveness and sensitivity" of the Modi government towards the pandemic and rued how "some leaders of a political party were busy in launching a vicious campaign".

Dubey was also peeved over Tharoor's remarks on the "Indian variant" of Covid-19 "when WHO has itself said that there is no such variant" and hence, "why would an Indian MP use language that is unscientific and derogatory towards Indians".

The Dubey-Tharoor spat is not new. In August last year also, they had moved a privilege motion against each other over a row on summoning Facebook before the IT panel. Tharoor then wanted to take up the issue of a Wall Street Journal report that suggested how Facebook India turned a blind eye to the hate speech of a BJP leader and three others to ward off any damage to its business prospects. Back then, Tharoor was the first to write to the Speaker sending a privilege notice against Dubey, who had launched a full scathing attack on him, questioning Tharoor’s decision. Dubey was quick to retaliate with a counter privilege notice against Tharoor as well as Rahul Gandhi.

Also Read | Toolkit case: Rahul Gandhi says 'truth remains unafraid'

A similar scene had played out in 2014 in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by Congress leader K V Thomas. Dubey was a key PAC member and headed some of its committees. He had written to then Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, seeking to move a privilege motion against Thomas after the latter kept insisting on calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the panel on the demonetisation decision.

Mahajan called a meeting of the chairpeople of the PAC, the Public Undertakings Committee, the Estimates Committee and department-related standing committees of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to douse the fire and streamline the working of committees as similarly rows along political lines had erupted in other panels as well.

Parliamentary panels are supposed to function in a non-partisan manner taking up issues of public importance before the Parliament or otherwise but political loyalties have always cast a shadow on their independent functioning.

From the Land Acquisition Bill to the summoning of Facebook, from adopting a report on 2G to discussing Bofors, Rafale, AgustaWestland, Demonetisation, the PM-CARES fund and now the "toolkit," the divide along party lines has sharply come to the fore in the Parliamentary panels.