After Congress, CPI(M), CPI submit breach of privilege notices against Amit Shah

New Delhi: CPI(M) and CPI have submitted breach of privilege notices against Home Minister Amit Shah, accusing him of misleading the Rajya Sabha by claiming in the House that the Kerala government did not act on early warnings issued to it on the devastating landslides in Wayanad that claimed over 200 lives.

While intervening on a Calling Attention Motion on Wayanad landslides on Wednesday, Shah had accused the Kerala government of “not heeding” to prior warnings sent on July 23, 24, 25 and 26, a charge denied by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Rajya Sabha MP V Sivadasan submitted the notice on behalf of CPI(M) on Wednesday itself while CPI floor leader P Sandhosh Kumar submitted a separate notice on Saturday seeking initiation of breach of privilege provisions against the Home Minister.

Congress too had submitted a breach of privilege notice against Shah on the same charges. Congress Chief Whip Jairam Ramesh submitted the notice, claiming that the remarks of Shah were “extensively fact-checked” in the media and it is clear that Shah “misled the Rajya Sabha by his emphatic statements which have been proven to be false”.

Shah had also made similar remarks in Lok Sabha during the Calling Attention Motion on Wednesday. His remarks in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha came after Opposition MPs, especially those from Kerala, raised the issue of early warning to the state.

Vijayan refuted Shah's charges and earlier said the IMD had only issued an orange alert for the landslide hit area till Tuesday morning where there was 572 mm rainfall in 48 hours while the warning was for 115 mm to 204 mm rainfall in two days. The Weather Office also said a red alert was issued only after the landslide occurred.

Separately, three CPI(M) Kerala MPs John Brittas, AA Rahim and Sivadasan also wrote to Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar seeking his urgent intervention in seeking to set the record straight.

While sharing Vijayan’s contentions, the three MPs also referred to a reply to a question in Lok Sabha on 23 September 23, 2020 and said the Geological Survey of India (GSI) has long been involved in studying landslides in the Western Ghats, including Kerala.

“Despite acknowledging Wayanad and Idukki as landslide-prone areas, there have been no initiatives to install there systems similar to the experimental regional Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) implemented in Nilgiri district, Tamil Nadu. This oversight is particularly concerning given that 60% of the nationwide landslides in the past seven years were reported to have occurred in Kerala,” they said.