Mallikarjun Kharge flags expunging of big portions of speech in Rajya Sabha

New Delhi: The leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said that a large portion of his speech during the motion of thanks to the presidential address had been either expunged or removed from the Rajya Sabha website.

After the zero hour, he stood to speak with the permission of the chairman CP Radhakrishnan, who made it clear that no matter concerning the LS should be raised in the upper house. Kharge assured that he was raising an issue to bring it to the notice of the chairman.

"I had stated on February 4 that the President's address was an excellent opportunity to raise issues of national importance, but those matters were not reflected in the address. In the same vein, I had expressed my views from social justice to parliamentary facts," Kharge said. "However, upon reading the speech uploaded on the Rajya Sabha website, I found that a large portion of my speech had been either expunged without any proper justification or removed without any explanation."


Kharge said that he had reviewed the expunged parts and found that they were those in which he had commented, backed by facts, on the parliamentary functioning during the tenure of the current government and criticised a few policies of the Prime Minister.

"My request is that the removed portions be reconsidered, because if you do not deliver justice, I will be compelled to share the unrecorded parts with the public," Kharge said.

The chairman strictly informed Kharge that he cannot share the expunged part. However, he assured the leader of the opposition that he would look into the matter.