A day after several portions of his speech were expunged, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday wrote to Speaker Om Birla asserting that the expunged parts of his Lok Sabha speech did not violate Rule 380 and requested its restoration.
In hus letter to Birla, Rahul Gandhi, who is Leader od Opposition in the Lower House, said, “I am writing this in the context of remarks and portions expunged from my speech during discussion on Motion of Thanks on the President’ Address on 1 July 2024.”
He said that “while I Chair dereives powers to expunge certain remarks from the proceedings of the House but the stipulation is only those kind of words, the nature of which have been specified in Rule 380 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha”.
Expressing shock, the Congress MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli said, “I am, however, shocked to note the manner in which considerable portion of my speech have been simply taken off from the proceedings under the garb of expunction. I am enclosing relevant portions of uncorrected Debates of Lok Sabha dated 2 July.”
“I am constrained to state that the portions expunged do not come under the ambit of Rule 380. What I sought to convey in the House is ground reality, the factual position. Every member of the House who personifies the collective voice of people whom he or she represents has the freedom of speech as enshrined in Article 105(1) of the Constitution of India. It is every member’s right to raise people ‘s concerns on the floor of the House,” he said.
He also nored that it is that right and in exercise of his obligations to the people of the country, that he was exercising yesterday.
“Taking off from records my considered remarks goes against the very tenets of parliamentary democracy. In this context I also wish to draw attention to speech of Anurag Thakur whose speech was full of allegations, however, surprisingly only one word has been expunged. With due respect to your good self this selective expunction defies logic,” he said, adding that he requests that the remarks expunged from the proceedings be restored.
The portions expunged include his comments on Hindus, the Prime Minister, BJP-RSS among others.
In his over one and half hour speech, which faced several disruptions Rahul Gandhi on Monday began his speech in the Lok Sabha by invoking ‘Jai Sanvidhan (Hail Constitution) amidst BJP chants of ‘Jai Sri Ram’.
He asserted that Hinduism is not about spreading fear, hatred, and falsehoods, Gandhi criticized the BJP for their interpretation of Hindu values.
Rahul Gandhi showed the pictures of Lord Shiva, Jesus Christ, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and others to underline the importance of fearlessness preached by all religions.
Facing opposotion from the treasury-bench members over his remarks, Rahul Gandhi slammed the BJP, saying, “Aap Hindu ho hi nahi (You are not Hindus). It is clearly written in Hinduism that one should stand with the truth and not back down from the truth or be scared of it.
When the Prime Minister intervened that “it is a very serious matter of concern”, Rahul Gandhi hit back saying that Modiji, BJP, RSS are not the custodians of Hinduism.