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NEW DELHI: Union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday accused Congress MPs of storming into Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s chamber and hurling abuses at him.“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.Rijiju alleged that the Congress MPs not only misbehaved with the Speaker but also defied parliamentary norms.“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 fresh allegations come amid an escalating standoff between the government and the opposition in the Parliament. On Tuesday, opposition parties submitted notice to remove Om Birla as Lok Sabha Speaker, accusing him of functioning in a “blatantly partisan” manner and demanding that he recuse himself from presiding over the House until the issue is resolved. Opposition leaders have also accused Birla of making “false claims” against Congress MPs after he referred to certain “unexpected action” in the Lok Sabha and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to come to the House to reply to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address.The BJP, however, strongly criticised the opposition’s notice against Birla, describing it as an attempt to undermine parliamentary institutions.On Tuesday, Rijiju claimed that the situation in the Lok Sabha could have turned volatile if BJP MPs had been allowed to confront Congress members on the day the Prime Minister was scheduled to reply to the debate.He released video footage of the February 4 proceedings, which showed Opposition women MPs approaching treasury benches during heated exchanges. Rijiju questioned whether such conduct could be justified and accused the Opposition of disrupting House proceedings in an unprecedented manner.The minister claimed BJP and NDA MPs were “very angry” over the behaviour of Congress members but had exercised restraint.Parliament has been witnessing continuous disruptions since February 2 after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disallowed by the Chair from quoting an article based on excerpts from former Army chief M M Naravane’s “unpublished memoir”.The chaos peaked on February 4 when Prime Minister was unable to reply to the Motion of Thanks due to opposition protests. In a rare development, the Motion of Thanks was passed on February 5 without the customary prime ministerial reply. The Speaker read out the motion and it was approved by voice vote amid sloganeering by Opposition MPs.
