Congress MPs meet Lok Sabha Speaker, Rajya Sabha Chairman over manhandling of party parliamentarians
Congress party lawmakers Thursday approached Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu seeking their intervention into what the party called the manhandling of several of its parliamentarians during the course of their protest against the summoning of senior leader and Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi in the alleged National Herald money laundering case.
While a delegation of Lok Sabha MPs led by the leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury met Birla, a group of Rajya Sabha MPs led by Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, P Chidambaram, K V Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh met Naidu.
“We are writing to register our strong possible protest against the atrocious manner in which the Delhi Police misbehaved with Congress Rajya Sabha MPs on June 13, 14 and 15… The actions of the Delhi Police just outside the office of the Indian National Congress at 24, Akbar Road were totally unprovoked and a brazen violation of all norms. On June 15th, Delhi Police personnel entered the office of the Indian National Congress at 24, Akbar Road and lathicharged MPs, journalists and Congress workers,” they said in a letter to Naidu.
The Congress also handed over video footage to back their claims. According to the Congress party, the MPs who were “manhandled and required medical treatment” were K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram, Shaktisinh Gohil, Pramod Tiwari and Jebi Mather.
“A number of MPs were detained at different police stations and kept in custody for well over ten hours without any explanation. This is a clear case of violation of the privileges of MPs and we urge you to take notice of these incidents and deal with the matter appropriately,” the letter said.
After meeting the Lok Sabha Speaker, Chowdhury said “We have given a detailed account of the violence and atrocities we faced. The Speaker listened to us patiently. We demanded action against those police officers who launched a well-planned attack on our MPs….Several of our MPs suffered injuries. And the police misbehaved with our MPs in the police stations too. Our MPs were treated…as if they were terrorists.”
Referring to the long hours of questioning of Gandhi, Chowdhury said “have you seen such a long questioning of a leader….What is our mistake……And we merely wanted to accompany our leader…Does the law not permit that…what wrong did we commit….But they have turned Delhi into a fortress.” “Even our women MPs were treated badly…their dress was torn…Our Lok Sabha MP Jothimani’s dress was torn… She was not allowed even water, leave aside giving her food. This is the ‘amrit kaal’ that the government was talking about. Modi and Shah are turning ‘amrit kaal’ into ‘jahar kaal’,” he added.
