BJP MP Nishikant Dubey on Thursday filed a substantive motion demanding cancellation of the membership of leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and that he be barred from contesting elections for his life.
Earlier, on Wednesday, Union minister Kiren Rijiju had said that the government would move a privilege motion against Rahul for comments made during the discussion on the Union budget where the Congress leader was critical of the India-US trade deal and alleged that Washington had a “chokehold” on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"There is no privilege motion,” Dubey, MP from Godda in Jharkhand, told PTI Videos. “I have submitted a substantive motion wherein I have mentioned how he allegedly engages with the Soros Foundation, Ford Foundation, USAID and travels to places like Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the US, and how he is linked with anti-India forces. I have demanded that his membership be cancelled and that he be barred from contesting elections for life.”
According to the Lok Sabha website, a substantive motion is a self-contained independent proposal submitted for the approval of the House and drafted in such a way as to be capable of expressing a decision of the House.
The admissibility of the motion will be debated in the House. In this case, Dubey will have to substantiate the grounds and charges against Rahul.
Under Rule 342, the Speaker may put the proposal for voting before the House.
A privilege motion is a formal notice issued by one member against another member for withholding facts, providing incorrect information or disregarding the dignity of the House.
A member can move a privilege motion with the consent of the Lok Sabha Speaker or chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Once the Speaker or the chairman approves, the motion is referred to the committee of privileges for investigation.
A member if found guilty of breaching privilege can be reprimanded, admonished and in rare cases, sentenced to imprisonment.
On his X (formerly Twitter) handle, Rijiju on Friday shared a video claiming a group of Congress MPs had entered the chamber of Speaker Om Birla and abused him and PM Modi.
“Our party believes in debate and discussion and never encourage MPs to threaten physically,” Rijiju wrote.
“I am challenging them (the BJP) to reply to Rahul Gandhi’s speech,” said K.C. Venugopal, Congress MP from Alappuzha, said. “LoP Rahul Gandhi raised the most pertinent issues during the speech yesterday. Nirmala Sitharaman did not answer his questions. Kiren Rijiju tweeted a video after the House was adjourned. How did he access the video of Parliament? The parliamentary affairs minister has now become unparliamentary. His duty is to coordinate with the Opposition for smooth functioning of Parliament, but here, the minister himself is doing all this.”
Congress MP from Saharanpur Imran Masood said the BJP was expunging everything from the proceedings.
“Bring the privilege motion and then also listen to the reply,” Masood told reporters. “Have the courage to hear the response. What exactly is unparliamentary in it that you are removing? Is Epstein files unparliamentary?”
In the Parliament premises, when reporters earlier on Thursday asked Rahul Gandhi about a privilege motion being brought against him, the Congress leader replied: “Do they give you some keywords?”
