Soon after the House met for the day, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar announced that he is not taking up the notices given under Rule 267 for suspending listed business to take up the NEET paper leak issue first. Kharge urged him to take up the matter which has led to widespread protests. “In the last seven years, there have been 70 cases of paper leaks,” Kharge said.
The Opposition members trooped into the well of the House and protested against the Modi government. Dhankhar expressed his dismay that even the Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Congress came into the well.
“This day has become tainted in the history of Indian Parliament that the Leader of the Opposition came into the well. I am pained and shocked that parliamentary tradition will fall so low that the LoP and Deputy Leader will come into the Well… This institution was tarnished, tainted and demeaned. It was the worst sacrilege that could have been committed in the temple of democracy,” Dhankhar said.
Kharge defended himself later when he told a news agency that he had raised his hand for 10 minutes to draw the attention of the Chair but Dhankhar ignored him and looked only at the Treasury benches. “This is his fault. He ignored me… When I tried to draw his attention he looked at the government side. He did this purposely to ignore and insult me… He should not do so for the sake of the dignity of the House,” he said.
BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi moved the motion of thanks to the President’s address but his speech was interrupted by the Opposition and Dhankhar adjourned the House once and he resumed speaking when the members assembled again. Trivedi attacked the Congress on the 1975 Emergency and several “dictatorial” steps taken by their government in the past. He mentioned the bribing of JMM MPs to win support, Sonia Gandhi heading the National Advisory Council and being forced to resign from her membership of Lok Sabha as NAC came under Office of Profit, Gandhi acting as “Super PM”, and the resolution passed by Congress governments in states against the Citizenship Amendment Act, among other issues. Kavita Patidar, BJP MP from Madhya Pradesh, seconded the motion.At one point, Dhankhar asked Leader of the House JP Nadda to reason with the Opposition. “As Leader of the House I had thought my first speech would start with pleasantries… Yesterday, at the business advisory committee meeting, it was discussed that 21 hours will be set aside for debate on the President’s address. But the intention of the Opposition has been to disrupt the House. Congress is not in favour of a debate and has come with a pre-decided and pre-determined mind,” Nadda said.
