Nishikant Dubey demands termination of Rahul’s Lok Sabha membership

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey on Friday appeared before the Lok Sabha Privilege Committee and demanded the termination of the Lok Sabha membership of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, sources said. Nishikant Dubey sought a privilege motion against Rahul Gandhi for making a “misleading, derogatory, unparliamentary and incriminatory” statement during a discussion on the motion of thanks on the President’s Address. Lok Sabha MP Sunil Singh asked Dubey to appear as a witness in the committee. Apart from panel chief, Sunil Singh, other members from the committee who were present today include TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee, K Suresh from Congress, CP Joshi, Dilip Ghosh, Raju Bista and Ganesh Singh of BJP. MPs like K Suresh and Kalyan Banerjee argued that there was no ground for any such breach as the speech by the Wayanad MP was already expunged. According to the sources, DMK, MP TR Baalu wasn’t present before the committee today but he has written to the panel saying that there was no privilege that would stand any argument against Rahul. In his argument on the issue, Dubey first stated that even if the debate was in the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, Rahul Gandhi’s reply was largely about Gautam Adani and in fact in his speech, Adani was mentioned by Rahul Gandhi at least 75 times. Further, the Jharkhand MP presented his case stating that three privilege notices needed to be moved against Gandhi. One, Under Rule 352 (2), an MP can comment on a fellow parliamentarian only with prior notice and without the approval of the Speaker. This was breached by Rahul by commenting on PM Modi, sources said. Secondly, Dubey also quoted the incident in 1976 when Subramanian Swamy was dismissed from Rajya Sabha – when allegations were made against Parliament and PM. Dubey stated that the same is the case now – casting aspersions on the conduct of the Prime Minister is undermining democracy. Thirdly, Dubey authenticated that the speech o