Objecting to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar’s decision to expunge a part of his remarks made on Thursday, Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’ Brien shot off a letter to him saying that the point of order he had raised was within the “true essence of democracy and anything but “unparliamentary”.
Mr. O’Brien’s remarks were aimed at seeking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s response on the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur. Quoting from Mr. Modi’s speech made in June 2014, when the Prime Minister had said that “our democracy will not sustain if we can’t guarantee freedom of speech and expression”, the Trinamool Congress leader said, “Easier said than done. Phrases from my point of order on July 20 were expunged by the exercise of the Presiding Officer’s discretion,” he said.
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He asserted in the letter that he was only “duly and rightfully” questioning the Prime Minister about the law and order situation in Manipur. “The point of order made by me and the questions asked therein were within the true essence of democracy and anything but “unparliamentary”. I had simply asked for the Prime Minister to speak on Manipur in Parliament,” he said.
Hitting out at the Central government, he said, the lists of unparliamentary words and using tools like “expunging” remarks are aimed at suppressing free speech. “The act of declaring words used to criticise the government in power as anti-union or “unparliamentary” is a blatant attempt at muzzling the Opposition. The problem is not that the Constitution does not guarantee free speech, but that it is easy to silence free speech because of a combination of overboard laws like this one,” he noted.
TMC MP Derek O’Brien demands his entire July 20 speech in Rajya Sabha be put on record
TMC MP Derek O'Brien has written to the Rajya Sabha Chairman demanding that his entire speech on July 20 in the House be put on record as he had "rightfully" questioned the government on the alarming situation in Manipur.
Parts of the MP's speech in the House were expunged.
"Phrases from my point of order on 20 July 2023 were expunged by the exercise of the Presiding Officer's discretion. The Point of Order made by me on July 20, 2023, was an attempt as leader of one of the largest opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha, to duly and rightfully question the Prime Minister and the Government in power about the alarming and distressful law and order situation in the state of Manipur," Mr. O'Brien wrote.
Mr. O'Brien said last year, the Lok Sabha Secretariat issued a booklet listing down words and expressions that were to be regarded as "unparliamentary" including commonly used words such as ashamed, abused, betrayed, corrupt, drama, hypocrisy and incompetent.
"A close perusal of the above mentioned makes it apparent that recent additions to this list are replete with words that have been explicitly used in recent years by the Opposition to describe the Union government." he said.
