'Denied opportunity to speak': INDIA bloc stages walk out from RS

New Delhi: The entire INDIA bloc walked out of the Rajya Sabha after the Leader of the Opposition and the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge were not allowed to speak and clarify certain things said by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his address the previous day.

Accompanied by the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, senior leader P Chidambaram, and others, Kharge specifically referred to the Prime Minister’s accusations that the opposition was against the Constitution.

Kharge said the entire INDIA bloc condemned the denying him the opportunity to speak.

He said he wanted to mention certain things in the Rajya Sabha supported by documentary evidence such as how the RSS, the BJP, and its earlier avatar Jan Sangh were against the constitution of the country and how vigorously they had opposed it.

Kharge quoted the editorial of the RSS mouthpiece ‘Organiser’ of November 30, 1950, in which the RSS had categorically rejected the constitution saying there was nothing Indian in it.

The Congress president also countered the claims of the Prime Minister that the Congress had let down Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and had got him defeated in the elections.

He quoted Ambedkar as having praised the Congress party and credited it with having given him the position of the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution when there were other competent people also.

He said it was the RSS and Jan Sangh which had opposed the constitution and even burnt the effigies of Dr. Ambedkar and Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in Ramlila Maidan.