The Lok Sabha was on Monday adjourned for the second time, till 4 p.m., amid a row over Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi repeatedly seeking to raise the alleged details of the Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh in 2020.
The lower house of the Parliament saw a heated exchange between the Congress and the ruling BJP over former Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane’s “unpublished” book on the Doklam standoff between India and China in 2020.
When the House reconvened at 3 p.m., Defence Minister Rajnath Singh again objected to the remarks and urged Speaker Om Birla to stop LoP Rahul Gandhi from raising the issue even without any “authenticity”.
Chaos erupted in the house, but Gandhi remained adamant on raising the Ladakh standoff issue for “national security” purposes.
Amid this, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju stood up and said: “… What do you gain by portraying the country in a poor light? We may have differences of opinion, but in the national interest, we should all stand together.”
“You (Rahul Gandhi) are repeatedly raising things that you do not know about. There is no clarification about the book or the magazine. You are trying to humiliate our Army by making such statements. If Rahul Gandhi wants to talk about the borders, then tell us how much land did the Congress surrender to China in 1962?” Rijiju questioned.
When the din did not fade, the Speaker adjourned the House till 4 p.m.
Earlier in the day, Gandhi, who initiated the Opposition’s response to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, started his speech by quoting some “uncomfortable truths” about the India-China 2020 standoff at the border, purportedly from an “unverified” book.
However, he was interrupted, within minutes of his speech, first by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and then Home Minister Amit Shah and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rijiju.
While the Congress MP stated that the article published in a leading magazine was based on memoirs penned by former Army chief Naravane, and hence deserved to be put into the public domain, Rajnath Singh disputed his claim and said that the book has never been published, and this amounted to misleading and misguiding the House.
