Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey on Wednesday moved a privilege motion against Shashi Tharoor (Congress), who heads the parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology (IT), and demanded his removal as the Chairman of the IT panel.
Raising the matter in the Lok Sabha during the Zero Hour, Mr. Dubey said members from the ruling party would not be attending Wednesday’s meeting, in which the panel was supposed to discuss the controversial Pegasus Project. The meeting was eventually cancelled for want of quorum as the BJP members didn’t turn up.
Officials from the IT Ministry and the Ministry of Communications have been summoned for the meeting.
Mr. Dubey’s move comes a day after BJP MPs walked out of a meeting of the IT panel, alleging that the agenda was not circulated to them ‘properly’.
Mr. Tharoor, however, had gone public about his decision that the IT panel should look into the allegation of snooping using the Pegasus spyware and had given several media interviews.
“All BJP MPs boycotted the IT committee meeting because of Shashi Tharoor’s personal agenda. When the House is functioning, how can meetings be scheduled at the same time? It is our job as MPs to help Parliament function. I had raised the issue during the last session as well,” Mr. Dubey said.
High level of sycophancy
The notice given by Mr. Dubey to the Lok Sabha Speaker reads, “Needless to say that this ‘gentleman’ has not only disrobed the democratic functioning of an august Committee but also exhibited an extreme high level of sycophancy towards his political masters, who still have a false notion of ruling our country and its democratic institutions by way of destroying them bit-by-bit and also creating a ruckus through their cronies like the present Chairperson of the Committee on Information Technology.
“This goes on to show that Dr. Shashi Tharoor himself decides the ‘Agenda’ of the sitting of the Committee on Information Technology and soon thereafter, break this news not with the Members of the Committee but to the Media and his Twitter handle.”
