Thursday, May 6, 2010

BJP APOLOGIES FOR ANANTH CALLING lALU TRAITOR

7 May 2010

BJP APOLOGISES FOR ANANTH CALLING LALU "TRAITOR"

From Our Delhi Bureau

NEW DELHI: Much to the surprise of ruling and opposition benches, Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj on Thursday tendered an unconditional apology in the Lok Sabha on behalf of the Bhartiya Janata Party for its general secretary Ananath Kumar calling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad a "Gaddar" (traitor), anti-national and champion of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis during the Census debate on Wednesday.

She rose to tender the apology as soon as the House met and that created a climate that allowed the question hour to go on without disruptions that were otherwise definite from Lalu Prasad and others.
When Lalu Prasad sought to intervene, she quipped that he too had lost temper to walk menacingly towards Ananth Kumar and so "I apologise on behalf of Laluji also."

Lalu Prasad could not speak but for thanking Sushma Swaraj with a gesture of "Namaste" as she said she felt the apology necessary to allow the House carry on with a lot of important business not yet finished.

Speaker Meira Kumar, who had on Wednesday reprimanded Trinamul Congress member Sudip Bandopadhyay for unparliamentary act, preferred not to say anything, except to tell members that the chapter is now closed and they need not harp on it. She also persuaded the AIADMK members to withdraw from the well and thus began the question hour.

Ananth Kumar was not in the House around 1 PM when Speaker Meira Kumar wanted him to resume his speech that was interrupted by pandemonium and adjournment on Wednesday. The debate was listed on the agenda towards the end of the day after passing three Bills and other business, but Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal conceded the Opposition's demand to start it immediately after zero hour.

Sushma Swaraj's apology came as a surprise as Ananth Kumar had on Wednesday insisted in the House and again while talking to reporters that he would neither apologise nor withdraw his comments and that "anti-national" was not an unparliamentary word.

While talking to reporters, she said Ananth Kumar did not deny using words "Gaddar" and "rashtra-virodhi" while initiating the debate, but he should have been understood in the context. "Our notice demanding a discussion on census was against the column 'nationality as declared' in the National Population Register (NPR) form. Gaddar word per se is unparliamentary but not in this context," she added.

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2 comments:

LS KRISHNAN said...

I appreciated the gesture of Sushmaji. What is the sense in disrupting the proceedings and wasting precious hours of parliament and thus public money on trivial issues.
Can we say Sushmaji has adopted Munnabhai's Gandhigiri!

LS KRISHNAN said...

I appreciated the gesture of Sushmaji. What is the sense in disrupting the proceedings and wasting precious hours of parliament and thus public money on trivial issues.
Can we say Sushmaji has adopted Munnabhai's Gandhigiri!