BJP's Ravi Shankar Prasad and Congress' KC Venugopal verbal duel over conduct of PM, LoP

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Wednesday witnessed a tit-for-tat verbal duel between BJP's Ravi Shankar Prasad and Congress' KC Venugopal, with the former questioning the conduct of leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the latter retorting by questioning the attitude of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Opposition. Both senior MPs displayed their skills for repartee and political googlies.

The stage was set when Prasad, during the debate on Opposition's resolution for the removal of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, targeted Gandhi by alleging that the "provision for the resolution has been weaponised only to satisfy the ego of a leader in that (Opposition) side". In his subsequent speech, Venugopal accused the PM and BJP of "systemic and ruthless choking of parliamentary democracy".

Prasad alleged Gandhi failed to rise to the standards set for the LoP, as the shadow prime minister, to "conduct with dignity" and "measure words" while criticising the government in the House and abroad and requested Venugopal to advise Gandhi on his conduct. The Congress general secretary responded by referring to various incidents of criticism by the then Gujarat chief minister Modi had made during his trips abroad, criticising the then ruling dispensation at the Centre.


Quoting former PMs Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi disproving previous Opposition resolutions for the removal of then Speakers, Prasad said, "I am quoting Pandit Nehru to remind you how he had disproved earlier motion for the removal of the Speaker. You people (Opposition) at least listen to what Nehruji had said." In response, Venugopal said: "In every session, the ruling side members have been making all kinds of attacks against Nehruji. Today they have chosen to praise him. One day they will also praise Rahul Gandhi... While Nehruji was in the House to reply to the debate on the motion against the Speaker, where is the PM today? He is not in the House to reply to this debate."

While Prasad lamented how some Congress women MPs had surrounded the PM's seat in the previous session and praised Birla for his handling of that situation (by requesting the PM not to come to the House), Venugopal alleged that the PM had used the Office of the Speaker to avoid facing the House. Prasad said he was amused to hear some of Gandhi's old speeches, in which he talked about "tapasya creating heat in the body" and about "jalebi factory". Venugopal said he had heard Modi saying in an interview that during the Balakot airstrike he had suggested deploying IAF fighter jets by "making use of cloud cover and rains" to evade Pakistani radars.