Congress MP and former TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy condemned the BJP MPs for misbehaving and heckling Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the sacred premises of Parliament.
In a statement here, he said Union Minister Smriti Irani and a few other BJP MPs heckled her and behaved in a demeaning and disgraceful manner right inside Parliament. He said Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary’s remarks on President Draupadi Murmu were inadvertent slip of tongue and he immediately expressed regret and also apologised for the same.
However, BJP made it a big issue and tried to drag Sonia Gandhi into the controversy. “By shouting slogans against Sonia Gandhi, a senior Parliamentarian, one of the great leaders of this era, president of a national party and a 75-year-old lady, BJP has stooped to a new low in its long history of undermining parliamentary democracy.”
Mr. Reddy accused the BJP of trying to score political points by constantly referring to the caste and gender of someone who holds the highest constitutional post of the President of India by referring to her caste and gender. It was the BJP that was raking up the caste of the President of India and it reflected their mindset of not honouring the President of the country.
The Nalgonda MP also said the government did not want to discuss serious issues concerning the nation and the BJP instead of ensuring smooth functioning of the House was trying to escape from its accountability.
He described the suspension of opposition MPs from both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha as 'unprecedented' and 'unfair'. "When BJP was in opposition, its leaders including Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj used to protest in the well of the House and always claimed it was a form of parliamentary democracy. But today they are finding a fault with the same act."
