Answer may not lie in discussion...: Kharge junks Dhankhar's invite to meet

The Vice President and Chair of the Rajya Sabha had written to the Congress president on December 23, seeking a meeting.

New Delhi: The ‘letter war’ between Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge has intensified with the latter accusing the former of justifying the “autocratic and arrogant” attitude of the Modi government towards Parliament and believing in suspension of MPs to facilitate the passing of Bills.

Kharge’s response on Sunday came after Dhankhar a day before accused the Congress and other Opposition parties of “weaponising” disruption as a political strategy, which is “sacrileging the temple of democracy”, and MPs were suspended to serve public interest.

In a two-page letter, Kharge told Dhankhar that the government has indeed “weaponised” the suspension of MPs as a “convenient tool” to “undermine democracy, sabotage Parliamentary practices and throttle the Constitution” as well as privilege motions to throttle the Opposition’s voice.

“This is a deliberate design of the ruling dispensation to undermine Parliament itself. By suspending MPs, the government is effectively silencing the voice of the voters of 146 MPs altogether,” he said.

“It would be distressing when history judges the presiding officers harshly for Bills passed without debate and not seeking accountability from the government. It is disappointing that the Chairman feels effecting suspension facilitated legislative business by passing bills without discussion,” he said.

Kharge said Dhankhar’s December 23 letter “unfortunately justifies” the “autocratic and arrogant attitude” of the government towards Parliament and it also “shockingly justifies the denigration” of Parliamentary practices and subversion of democracy. He said the Chairman did not seem fit to ensure that the government is held accountable to the Parliament rather than speaking to the media.

He said even before the suspensions, he and other MPs had submitted notices for a statement by Home Minister Amit Shah on the December 13 security breach in Parliament.

He said, “it was regrettable that the Chair condoned the attitude of the Home Minister and the government who did not wish to make a statement on the floor of the House. It was even more regrettable that the Home Minister made his first public statement before a TV channel when the Parliament was in session and Chair did not find that ‘sacrileging the temple of democracy’.”

Kharge alleged that the suspension of MPs were predetermined and premeditated as it was “executed without any application of any mind”, as an MP who was not even in the Lok Sabha was suspended.

Referring to a social media post by a Trinamool Congress MP claiming that Leader of the Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal had told him that before Shah came to Rajya Sabha most of the Opposition MPs will be suspended, he said such comments “grossly undermines” the Chair and the Opposition expected that he would conduct a probe into whether such a threat was issued.

While expressing his inability to meet him on December 25, as suggested by Dhankhar, due to him being outside Delhi, Kharge said he would meet him at the earliest but sounded sceptical of the outcome saying if the government is not keen on running Parliament, there was not much use in him holding discussions in his chambers.