A day after Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan accused Congress members of trying to assault him and snatch his papers, Manickam B. Tagore, the man at the centre of the controversy, said he didn’t storm into the well of the Lok Sabha with the intention of assaulting the Minister.
“If the original CCTV footage from the Lok Sabha is released to the public, it will be clear that it was never my intention to assault the Minister. He was sitting in the second row, and I had only gone to plead with him to stop making such a disgraceful statement,” Mr. Tagore, sitting for Virudhunagar, told The Hindu.
The trouble started when Mr. Vardhan was replying to a starred question from former Congress president and Wayand member Rahul Gandhi. “Sir, please excuse me. Before I begin answering this question of dear Shri Rahul Gandhiji, I want to condemn, in no uncertain words, the outlandish language that he has used against the Prime Minister...,” he said. Mr. Gandhi had reportedly said: “6 mahina baad, iss desh ka yuva, Narendra Modi ko dande maar maar ke desh se bahar karenge” [After six months, the youth of the country will beat [Narendra] Modi with sticks and throw him out].
Mr. Tagore said he did not think it was a mistake to walk into the well. “If our voice is not heard in a democracy, going to the well is the only option available to us.”
After the scuffle, he met Speaker Om Birla, who assured him that the CCTV footage would be scanned before any action was taken. Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary, along with party chief whip Kodikunnil Suresh, met Mr. Birla too.
Sources said the Congress had proposed that Mr. Tagore express regret for his actions, only if Mr. Gandhi was allowed to speak and Mr. Vardhan also apologised for his comments.
Mr. Tagore also submitted a complaint to the Speaker, alleging that BJP member Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh pushed him and threatened to kill him. “He pushed me and told me in Hindi, ‘main tujhe goli maar dunga’.”
He said the government had tried to use the Budget session to improve the BJP’s prospects in the Delhi Assembly election. “The treasury benches wanted to make this session Delhi-centric. In a very organised manner, they used Parliament to run their political campaign for the Delhi election.”
