Congress has been used to touching new lows out of political frustration, but the grand old party’s conduct during the Lok Sabha proceedings yesterday was insensitive and crass even by the party’s petty standards. While there was supposed to be a constructive debate over the sensitive issue of women safety, Congress leader in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury chose to politicise and communalise rapes. He said, “Sita is being burnt” while plans are afoot to build a Ram temple.
Adhir’s desperate attempts to politicise and communalise the sensitive issue naturally triggered a sharp reaction, with Union Minister Smriti Irani intervening and saying that it was unfortunate how the incidents of rape and killing of women are being communalised and politicised. However, in what only made matters worse, the House witnessed ugly scenes of two Congress MPs heckling Irani and charging aggressively towards her in the Lok Sabha. Their unruly behaviour led to sharp reactions from the ruling BJP MPs, but the two Congress MPs have not even apologised till now.
It must be for the first time that incidents of rape and murder have been given a communal angle within the Parliament showing the level to which the Sonia Gandhi-led party, and it is the Congress leader in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury who has put the party in a tight spot once again. It has only been a few months since he took up the role of the Congress leader in Lok Sabha, but within this short period itself he has managed to put the party through a lot of trouble with his controversial utterances and absurd choice of words in the Parliament. Only days ago, he had created a controversy by suggesting the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has become weak and called her Nirabala Sitharaman. Faced with protests from the BJP MPs and admonishment by Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, Chowdhury had to apologise for his remarks.
Earlier this year, Chowdhury had compared the prevailing security restrictions in Kashmir to concentration camps. Moreover, during the Lok Sabha debate after abrogation of Article 370, he had even questioned India’s territorial sovereignty over Kashmir and had said, “Our question is how this can be considered as an internal matter? Some days ago, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar spoke to (US secretary of state Mike) Pompeo and then too it was said that this was a bilateral issue. We need to resolve this. You will have to clarify on this. Whether it is internal, bilateral and whether you can do it on your own or not.” All these controversies had brought shame to the Congress and also raised serious questions over the party’s commitment towards India’s sovereignty and integrity.
Therefore, Chowdhury who has proved to be the nemesis of the Congress in the recent past has now clearly led the grand old party into what ought to be described as Congress’ ugliest show in the Parliament.
