"Fearless During Breach": BJP vs Congress Over 'People's Leader' Title

The security breach in the Parliament has become a political flashpoint, with leaders from the BJP and Congress taking swipes at each other. Opposition is demanding that the breach be discussed in both houses and also a probe into why BJP MP Pratap Simha gave visitor's passes to the intruders. The BJP has initiated a high-level probe into the incident and Prime Minister Narendra Modi today chaired a meeting with party MPs to discuss the next course of action.

Two intruders jumped into the house yesterday from the visitor's gallery and released colour smoke inside the Lok Sabha, causing panic among the parliamentarians.

While several MPs rushed outside, some gathered their courage to restrain the two intruders and hand them over to the police.

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate used one such image of Rahul Gandhi standing his ground while one of the intruders was leaping on the benches in an attempt to reach the Speaker's chair.

Referring to Mr Gandhi as a "people's leader", Ms Shrinate wrote that the Congress leader backed his words with actions during the breach.

"While everyone was running helter-skelter in the House, the people's leader was standing fearlessly," Ms Shrinate wrote.

In a counter, BJP's IT cell chief Amit Malviya posted the same picture, but highlighted party MP S Muniswamy as the 'people's leader'. Mr Muniswamy was standing next to Mr Gandhi in the photo shared by Congress.

Mr Malviya in his post wrote, " Explosive entry of BJP MP from Kolar S Muniswami in the category of Jan Nayak (people's leader)."

Shocking scenes were witnessed in Lok Sabha yesterday when Sagar Sharma jumped out of the visitors' gallery and into the chamber. He opened a yellow smoke canister and jumped from desk to desk. As MPs overpowered him, the other intruder, D Manoranjan opened a smoke canister. He, too, was soon caught.