Congress member of the Lok Sabha Manickam Tagore has given a notice of privilege against Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani for allegedly misleading the House on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s remarks about rape.
Mr. Tagore met the Lok Sabha Secretary General on Monday, seeking privilege proceedings against Ms. Irani. “The minister had claimed that the Shri. Rahul Gandhi had given a clarion call to rape women in India in his speech during an election rally on December 12th. The minister has knowingly and intentionally misled the Parliament by falsely attributing a statement to Mr. Gandhi,” he said in the notice.
“The minister's assertions on the floor of this House are absolutely false. The member has willfully misled not only members of the House, but also the entire nation,” he said, explaining that Mr. Gandhi, as “a responsible Opposition leader,” was pointing out the increasing violence against women in the country and the ‘failure’ of the government to prevent them. Mr. Tagore has also submitted a copy of Mr. Gandhi’s remarks to the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
Mr. Tagore recalled in the notice that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a similar statement in the past. “The Prime Minister, Shri. Narendra Modi in his election campaign before the 2014 general election described Delhi as the ‘rape capital’ in a similar tone of protest,” the notice said. He submitted a video copy of Mr. Modi’s speech, requesting that the matter be referred to the Privileges Committee to start the proceedings against Ms. Irani.
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