Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey on Friday claimed that he saw Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi “climbing up the Makar Dwar” at the Parliament during Thursday’s scuffle, where two BJP MPs were grievously injured.
Speaking to news agency ANI, Dubey said he and another leader saw Gandhi going up the Parliament gate and decided to give him space.
“After climbing up, he pushed Pratap Sarangi ji, Santosh Pandey ji who is next to us. Mukesh Rajput ji got pushed and all those who were standing there were pushed. For the first time, I saw the ugly face of this party. The way our MPs were pushed, misbehaved with and after that, they had no remorse, was condemnable,” he added.
Earlier in the day, Dubey moved a breach of privilege notice against Gandhi to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, accusing the Congress MP of showing “criminally edited” Rajya Sabha speech of Union home minister Amit Shah.
In the notice to Birla, the BJP MP alleged that Gandhi has yet again exhibited a case of “political bankruptcy” by sharing on social media, especially X, the “edited” version of Shah’s speech in the Rajya Sabha’s Constitution debate.
He alleged that the video was shared with the sole purpose of stoking public sentiments and harming the dignity of the Parliament and the nation.
The grand old party shared a short clip of the home minister’s speech to accuse him of insulting Dr BR Ambedkar, with Shah charging the Congress with disrupting his address.
Dubey said that Shah had raised objectionable treatment given to Ambedkar by none other than Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of the country.
He alleged that Gandhi cleverly cut out the context of Shah’s words with the ulterior motive of defaming him and attacking the Parliament’s dignity.
“This time he (Gandhi) has surpassed all the limits of sensible behaviour expected from the Leader of Opposition of Lok Sabha and thus committed the offence of ‘Breach of Parliamentary Privileges’ and ‘Contempt of the House’ which calls for exemplary punishment,” Dubey’s notice said.
He noted that the punishment for the same could not be less than Gandhi’s immediate suspension from the House and its committees followed by a thorough investigation by the Committee of Privileges.
Amid protests from the opposition over Shah’s remarks on Ambedkar, an ugly scuffle broke out between the ruling alliance’s MPs and the INDIA bloc leaders, resulting in two BJP members, Pratap Sarangi and Mukesh Rajput being critically injured.
Following this incident, the BJP filed a complaint against Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of ‘assault, incitement and attempt to murder’.
In counter to the saffron party’s complaint, the Congress also filed a police complaint and alleged ‘misbehaviour’ with Mallikarjun Kharge inside the Parliament premises.
Rahul Gandhi had alleged that BJP MPs pushed him in a bid to obstruct his entry into the House and claimed that the ruling party’s leaders manhandled Kharge as well.
Additionally, the grand old party on Friday alleged that Thursday’s scuffle was “completely planned”. Congress MP Jairam Ramesh told ANI that this incident was done to “distract” the issue of Home minister Amit Shah’s remarks on Ambedkar.
(with inputs from agencies)