New Delhi:
Sonia Gandhi today made a rare dash towards the Speaker's Chair in the Lok Sabha to join her Congress lawmakers in protest after a BJP lawmaker allegedly said that the Indian Premier League or IPL involved her family's black money - the term given for untaxed money parked in foreign accounts.
"I demand an apology from the Lok Sabha MP Mr Gautam for saying 'it's her black money'," the Congress president told NDTV later.
"They can't cast aspersions on me. They said this is Sonia Gandhi's black money and that is why I reacted like this and they have to apologize," she said.
A furious Mrs Gandhi had joined her party parliamentarians around Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's chair in loud protests that led to an adjournment.
When the house reassembled, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu said no black money remarks against the Congress president are on record. "If anything objectionable was said, it must be removed and if it is not on record, no discussion is needed," Mr Naidu said.
BJP MP Satish Gautam's comment targeting Mrs Gandhi came during the Lalitgate debate, when Congress lawmaker Mallikarjun Kharge was speaking. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, facing attacks for helping the tainted cricket boss Lalit Modi with travel documents in Britain, had challenged the opposition to hold a debate saying she was ready "this very minute."
The Congress president has been unusually forceful in the past few days in protests against the government and the demand that BJP leaders caught in controversies be removed.
Last week, Mrs Gandhi was at the forefront, shouting slogans and raising a fist, when her party MPs protested outside Parliament against the suspension of 25 lawmakers from the Lok Sabha. The protests, she asserted, would not stop unless the government addressed the opposition's demands.
Initiating the Lalitgate debate in the Lok Sabha today, Mallikarjun Kharge said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi must speak on the allegations against his party leaders. "The PM's silence on this (controversy) proves the links to Lalit Modi are suspicious," the Congressman charged.