"Control Freak Sarkar": Congress After Leaders' Parliament Remarks Deleted

The Congress kept the pressure on the government today over the deletion of senior leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge's remarks in parliament earlier this week. The BJP, it said, does not want the parliament to run through "consensus, collaboration, and concordance, but through clash, chaos, and conflict". Calling the government a "control and command freak," the party said there was nothing in either leader's remark that merited such a move.

Mr Gandhi and Mr Kharge had targetted Prime Minister Narendra Modi while participating in a debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address. They had questioned the Prime Minister's links with billionaire Gautam Adani, citing the meteoric rise in his fortunes after the BJP came to power in 2014.

"There is absolutely nothing which is remotely defamatory or indecent or unparliamentary or undignified in those addresses," senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said today. "Shri Rahul Gandhi and Shri Kharge spoke extremely politely and respectfully and based their addresses on factual narratives. It is amusing and supremely ironical to note that expunged portions even include questions asked!" a statement from him read.  

Describing Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar as "custodians and defenders of freedom of speech inside the Houses" Mr Singhvi said unless "free, frank and fearless discussion is allowed to take place within the two Houses of Parliament, democracy is fundamentally and irreversibly imperiled".
"Parliament can hardly remain the grand inquest of the nation if free speech leading to fearless discussion is throttled," he added in a statement.

The Congress, for long, has been accusing the government of crony capitalism. The party sharpened its focus on the government after Mr Adani's companies came under spotlight following a damaging report by US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged stock manipulation and accounting fraud by the group.

Mr Gandhi's remarks had drawn sharp response from Treasury benches, with Law Minister Kiren Rijiju asking him not to level "wild allegations" and to furnish proof of his claims.

A day later, PM Modi, responding to the motion of thanks to the President's address, lashed out at the 10 years of UPA rule, saying it had "bled the country dry".

The Adani Group has called Hindenburg's accusations a "malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations that have been tested and rejected by India's highest courts".