New Delhi: Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has called a meeting of Congress Lok Sabha MPs to discuss the suspension of Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. According to ANI, the meeting has been called at the CPP office in Parliament at 10:30 am. This comes after Chowdhury was suspended from the Lower House on Thursday after the House adopted a motion on his “misconduct”. The motion was moved by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi and was passed by voice vote in the absence of Opposition leaders who had earlier walked out.
“The Opposition leader caused repeated disturbances when PM Modi or other ministers spoke. This became habitual despite repeated warnings. He also made baseless allegations to spoil the nations image. Due to this deliberate and repeated misconduct of Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, I move the motion to refer this matter to the privileges committee of the House for further investigation and suspend the MP till the panel submits its report,” Pralhad Joshi stated.
Earlier in the day, while drawing a parallel between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the epic Mahabharat during no-confidence debate, the Congress MP stated PM Modi was blind to the plight of the people of the northeast state in the same way as “Dhritrashtra during Droupadi’s vastra haran”.
He also compared PM Modi with fugitive businessman Nirav Modi. He said that it is because of the pressure brought to bear on PM Modi by the Opposition alliance that he finally showed up in the Parliament.
“The power of no-confidence motion has brought the Prime Minister in the Parliament today. None of us were thinking about this no-confidence motion. We were only demanding that PM Modi should come to the Parliament and speak on the Manipur issue. We were not demanding any BJP member to come to the Parliament, we were only demanding our PM to come,” Chowdhury had said.
Reacting to his suspension, Chowdhury stated: “I have not insulted PM Modi. Modi ji speaks on everything but on Manipur issue, he is sitting ‘Nirav’, which means sitting silent. ‘Nirav’ means to be silent. My intention was not to insult PM Modi… PM Modi did not feel that he was insulted, his courtiers (darbari) felt so and brought this proposal against me. I came to know that (the matter) has been referred to the privilege committee and I have been suspended.”
