‘BJP-RSS are determined to gag Parliamentarians’: TMC MP Derek O’Brien

Taking a dig at the Centre, Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien said BJP and RSS were determined to gag Parliamentarians. 

“Parliament is being undermined…The Opposition will not take it lying down, TMC will not take it lying down. We will hit back hard because we have to save democracy,” said TMC MP Derek O’Brien on the “unparliamentary” words row.

The opposition on Thursday went straight for the government’s jugular over the “gag order” on using certain words in Parliament, insisting indignantly every expression used by them to describe how the BJP was destroying India has now been declared unparliamentary.

The clamour forced Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to step in to soothe frayed tempers by making it clear no word has been banned from use in Parliament but will be expunged on contextual basis. Members are free to express their views while maintaining decorum of the House, he said.

The opposition was brimming with anger after a new booklet by the Lok Sabha Secretariat said on Wednesday the use of terms like ‘jumlajeevi’, ‘baal buddhi’, ‘Covid spreader’, ‘Snoopgate’ and even commonly used words like ‘ashamed’, ‘abused, ‘betrayed’, ‘corrupt’, ‘drama’, ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘incompetent’ will henceforth be considered unparliamentary in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi derisively termed the compilation the “New Dictionary for New India”.

“Words used in discussion and debates which correctly describe the PM’s handling of the government, now banned from being spoken.”

“Example of an unparliamentary sentence: ‘Jumlajeevi Tanashah shed Crocodile Tears when his lies and incompetence were exposed’,” he said.

An angry Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “All words used by the Opposition to describe the reality of Modi Sarkar now to be considered ‘unparliamentary’. What next Vishguru”.

“No word has been banned. Members are free to express their views. No one can snatch that right, but it should be as per decorum of Parliament,” Birla told reporters.

The Speaker rejected the criticism that the BJP-led government at the Centre was behind the selection of ‘unparliamentary’ words and asserted that legislatures are independent of any government and the executive cannot give instructions to Parliament.

Also Read: ‘Nothing as selective expunging of words used by only Opposition’: Om Birla after Oppn fumes

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