Deliberate design by BJP to throttle oppn voice: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on his suspension from Lok Sabha | India News

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over his suspension from Lok Sabha and called it a deliberate design to throttle the voice of the opposition.

“This is a new phenomenon we have never before experienced in our career in Parliament … This is a deliberate design by the ruling party to throttle the voice of the opposition,” he said.
While stating that he cannot disobey the Speaker’s direction, Adhir said that such acts will undermine the spirit of parliamentary democracy.

“I didn’t have even a remote objective to tarnish anyone in the Parliament. If anything is termed unparliamentary, the Speaker has the right to delete or expunge it. If a few words were misconstrued as an offensive remark they (BJP) could have followed the rules according to the provision,” he added.
Adhir Ranjan was suspended from Lok Sabha on Thursday for ‘repeated misconduct’ pending an investigation by the privileges committee.
He had mentioned fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi to question Modi’s ‘silence’ on the Manipur issue.
“Modi ji speaks on everything but on Manipur issue, he is sitting ‘Nirav’, which means sitting silent. ‘Nirav’ means to be silent. My intention was not to insult PM Modi,” the Congress leader had clarified.
Congress leaders called the action against its floor leader ‘unbelievable and ‘undemocratic’.