NEW DELHI: Union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday released a video clip that he claimed was recorded by a Congress MP inside the chamber of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.Reiterating earlier allegations, Rijiju accused Congress MPs of barging into the Speaker’s chamber, misbehaving with him and using abusive language.”This is the illegal video clip taken by a Congress MP when 20-25 Congress MPs entered the Chamber of Hon’ble Speaker, abused him and threatened Honb’le Prime Minister. Our party believes in debate & discussion and never encourage MPs to threaten physically,” Rijiju said in a post on X. The remark comes a day after Rijiju remarks from a day earlier, when he alleged that a group of Congress MPs had entered the Speaker’s chamber and behaved in an unruly manner.“At least 20-25 Congress MPs entered the Lok Sabha Speaker’s chamber and abused him. I was also there. The Speaker is a very soft person, otherwise strict actions would have been taken. Senior Congress leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and KC Venugopal, were also present inside, and they were encouraging them to fight,” Rijiju told reporters.“They went to the Speaker’s chamber and abused him, said bad things. Then the Speaker gave a ruling, which was not followed and then Rahul Gandhi said that he does not need anyone’s permission to speak. He will speak as per his wish, without any rules… Unless permission is given by the Chair, members cannot speak in the House. Even the Prime Minister will speak only with the permission of the Chair. Everyone speaks only with permission,” he added.The allegations have surfaced amid a deepening confrontation between the government and the opposition in Parliament. Earlier this week, opposition parties submitted a notice seeking the removal of Om Birla as Lok Sabha Speaker, accusing him of acting in a “blatantly partisan” manner. Opposition leaders have also alleged that Birla made “false claims” against Congress MPs after he referred to certain “unexpected action” in the Lok Sabha and requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to come to the House to reply to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address.The BJP has strongly rejected the opposition’s move against the Speaker, calling it an attempt to weaken parliamentary institutions.Earlier, Rijiju had claimed that tensions in the Lok Sabha could have spiralled further if BJP MPs had confronted Congress members on the day the Prime Minister was scheduled to respond to the debate.He also shared video footage from the February 4 proceedings, which showed women MPs from the Opposition moving towards the treasury benches during heated exchanges. Rijiju questioned the conduct and accused the opposition of disrupting parliamentary proceedings in an unprecedented manner. According to the minister, BJP and NDA MPs were “very angry” over the behaviour of Congress members but chose to maintain restraint.Parliament has faced several disruptionssince February 2 after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was prevented by the Chair from quoting an article based on excerpts from former Army chief M M Naravane’s “unpublished memoir”.The situation escalated on February 4, when Prime Minister was unable to reply to the Motion of Thanks amid opposition protests. The motion was passed on February 5 without the customary prime ministerial reply. The Speaker read out the motion, which was approved by voice vote amid continued sloganeering by Opposition MPs. Go to Source
