Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi speaking during party's protest in Parliament against expulsion of 25 MPs
Rahul Gandhi today reiterated his accusation that Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has "broken the law" by extending assistance to tainted cricket mogul Lalit Modi, which, he said, is grounds for her removal from office.
An earlier voicing of this opinion provoked Mrs Swaraj's party, the ruling BJP, to warn of a criminal defamation suit if Mr Gandhi did not apologise.
He hasn't.
Mr Gandhi, the Vice President of the Congress, was with party boss and his mother Sonia Gandhi this morning as they protested within the parliament complex against the penalty levied on 25 of their law-makers for repeatedly disrupting the Lok Sabha.
Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said the offenders are barred from five sittings of the House, provoking Mrs Gandhi to declare "the murder of democracy". The Congress has won the support of nearly eight other opposition parties in its charge that the suspension of its MPs is unwarranted.
Since the 21-day session of Parliament began last month, Parliament has been unable to function with the Congress pledging obstructions till three top leaders are removed by the BJP. Along with Ms Swaraj, the Congress says Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is guilty of assisting Lalit Modi in his appeal to UK immigration officials; it also wants the resignation of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over a massive jobs recruitment scam in Madhya Pradesh.
The BJP has ruled out the trio's resignations, but has said that the PM will comment on the controversies during a debate in parliament. The Congress has spurned that offer.
"The PM has a habit of speaking his voice, his
mann ki baat... he should listen to the voice of people of India," said Mr Gandhi, claiming that the demand for the resignations is a public one.
Mann ki Baat is the title of the PM's regular radio addresses to the country.
Yesterday, Sonia Gandhi accused the PM, who has so far not spoken on the scandals, of morphing from a champion of "
mann ki baat" to "
maun vrat" (vow of silence).