No business, except the Question Hour, took place in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday too as the Opposition demanded an apology from BJP President Amit Shah that former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was not courageous to implement the Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC).

When the House met in the morning, Chairman Venkaiah Naidu invited Shah to complete his speech and said Shah could not complete his speech on Tuesday. Deputy leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma objected to this invitation and demanded that Shah must apologise before starting his speech.

Sharma said Shah insulted former prime minister in his speech and it cannot be accepted. “I have heard your appeal and I am going through it,” Naidu assured Sharma. However, many Opposition members were supporting Sharma and Naidu adjourned the House till 12 pm.

The Question Hour went smoothly and for the second time in recent history, the Rajya Sabha considered 12 questions, which were answered by ministers on the floor of the House. When the House met after lunch at 2 pm, it was the turn of the Trinamool Congress to object to Shah’s speech. Senior TMC MP Sukhendu Shekhar Roy said there is no provision in the rule book that a member can continue his speech on another day.

“If any member who is so called upon does not speak, he shall not be entitled except with the permission of the Chair. Here, in this case, one honourable member has already spoken. How can he speak twice? There is no provision in the rules,” Roy argued. The Chairman turned down Roy’s plea and the TMC members stormed to the well protesting it. “Are we at the mercy of one party?” Naidu asked.

Shah claimed that his speech caused “so much fear” and he is ready to let go the opportunity. “I know why they do not want me to speak,” he said. Naidu subsequently asked Home Minister Rajnath Singh to reply to the debate started on Tuesday. However, disruptions continued and Singh could not make a statement. “As some of the members do not want the debate to continue and are not willing to hear the reply of the Home Minister, I would like to thank the Home Minister for continuously coming here for three days,” Naidu.

BJP flays TMC, congress

The BJP, on its part, accused the Trinamool Congress and the Congress of “murdering democracy” by not letting Shah speak on the NRC in Parliament.

Another side bar to this confrontation, largely between the BJP and the TMC whose chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said that the NRC will lead to a “civil war”, was the prospect of Shah holding a rally in Kolkata on August 11. While some reports suggested that the requisite permission for the rally would not be given by the local authorities, Shah dared Mamata by saying, “I am going. Let them arrest me.”

Meanwhile, the BJP underlined the “undemocratic and condemnable” behaviour exhibited by the TMC and the Congress in the Rajya Sabha.

“Today in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress and the TMC murdered democracy. During the debate on NRC, Amit Shah was invited to participate. Even before he rose to speak Anand Sharma of the Congress objected. He misled the House about the BJP President’s remarks on former PMs. That is not what Amit Shah said. He said Rajiv Gandhi signed the Assam Accord and NRC is the soul of the Accord. He said the Congress did not have the courage to implement the NRC but the BJP did,” said HRD Minister Prakash Javdekar.

‘NRC is a global issue’

Mamata Banerjee said the NRC is created in such a manner that every voter who does not vote for the BJP will lose his or her citizenship. She said the issue is a “global” issue and can cause damage in India’s relationship with Bangladesh. “The NRC will destroy relationship between India and Bangladesh. Out of 40 lakh people whose names are not in the list of NRC, only one per cent could be illegal infiltrators. But the BJP is trying to show that all those not included (in NRC) are infiltrators,” she said.

The CPI(M) said the utterance of Shah claiming that all 40 lakh people excluded in this draft NRC are ‘illegal migrants’ is causing widespread apprehension.

“All the complaints regarding non-inclusion must be thoroughly and seriously examined and corrected. The time limit for claims on inclusion of names must be extended to allow people to file their complaints. Only then the final NRC should be published. No Indian should be excluded,” the party’s Polit Bureau said in a statement.

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