Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met Speaker Om Birla on Thursday and has voiced his disapproval over the reference to the ‘Emergency’ made by the chair, saying it was “clearly political” and could have been averted.
“It was a courtesy call. The Speaker declared Rahul Gandhi as the Leader of the Opposition and after that he along with other INDIA alliance partner leaders met the Speaker,” AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said.
On being asked whether Gandhi discussed the issue of the Emergency being raised in the House, Venugopal said, “We discussed so many things about Parliament functioning. Of course, this issue also came up.”
“Rahul ji, as Leader of Opposition, informed the Speaker about this issue, and said it could have been avoided from the Speaker’s reference. That is clearly a political reference, it could have been avoided,” the Congress leader added.
Shortly after being chosen as Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Birla had sparked an uproar on Wednesday when he read openly a resolution denouncing the imposition of Emergency as an attack on the Constitution by Indira Gandhi, the then-prime minister. This act sparked loud protests from Congress members in the House.
Birla recounted that on June 26, 1975, the Congress leadership imprisoned opposition leaders, placed several limitations on the media, and reduced the judiciary’s independence as he brought the country’s harsh reality of Emergency to light.
Gandhi and the Speaker are meeting for the first time since Gandhi took over as the Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition. He was accompanied by SP’s Dharmendra Yadav, DMK’s Kanimozhi, Shiv Sena’s (SP) Supriya Sule, and TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee, among a few others.
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