Government, oppostion clash in RS over minister V K Singh’s presence

Members of BSP and Congress created uproar and demanded exit of Singh, which was countered by the treasury benches. Deputy Chairman P J Kurien also asserted that the minister has every right to be in the House.

Trouble started when Singh arrived in the House and took his seat. Senior BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra rose, saying Singh cannot be allowed to sit in the House “even for a minute” and should be “thrown out” as he has “violated” the Constitution. 

The BSP leader said, “You do not know even this much how to address a human being, how to address a Dalit. He is not entitled to sit in the House. He has no right to sit in the House as he has violated the same Constitution, whose oath he took. He should be thrown out. He has yet not apologized.”

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi took objection to this, saying the BSP members are “insulting” an honourable member and it is a “matter of privilege”.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, who rushed to the House to defuse the situation, asserted that Singh will not leave the House. Naidu dismissed the attack on Singh as a “canard” and accused the BSP of doing politics in the name of caste.

An unfazed Singh, a former Army Chief who was earlier seated in back row, moved to second row. As tempers ran high, the Deputy Chairman said it was not for the Chair but for the court to decide who violated the Constitution and who did not. “As a minister, he has the right to be here. We cannot ask a minister to go back. We are not here to judge whether someone has violated the Constitution,” he said. However, the BSP was not amused and created uproar, forcing Kurien to adjourn the House twice.

BJP today tore into Congress over the alleged involvement of its leaders in corruption cases and sought to link former Finance Minister P Chidambram’s actions to his son’s “interest” in some companies run by his friends. Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also raised the issue of alleged corruption charges against chief ministers of Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand at a press conference and demanded that Congress take action against these leaders. BJP’s strong attack indicated that there was still no thaw in the relations between the two parties, hopes of which were raised after PM Modi met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and former PM Manmohan Singh for their cooperation on the passage of GST bill.