NEW DELHI, Feb 2: The BJP said on Friday that Congress leader D K Suresh has no right to remain an MP even for a minute, as it accused him of openly talking of breaking India, violating his oath of protecting the country’s unity and sovereignty.
“Will the country’s unity and sovereignty be torn into shreds for political benefits,” BJP leader and former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told a press conference, as he hit out at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi besides their India bloc allies for maintaining a “conspicuous silence” over his “shameful” and “unconstitutional” comments.
D K Suresh, the Lok Sabha MP from Bangalore Rural and the brother of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, has stoked a row with his claims that injustice was being meted out to southern states in allocation of share in tax collection.
“Our tax money is being distributed to north India, if we don’t condemn it there might arise a situation where we will have to demand for a separate nation,” Suresh said on Thursday, commenting on the the interim budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Prasad said before contesting an election and after winning it, anyone takes oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the country’s unity and sovereignty.
“He has committed a gross impropriety as an MP by openly talking of breaking-up of India. It is a clear violation of the constitution’s main point of unity and integrity,” he said.In a swipe at Rahul Gandhi, who had led his party’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ earlier and is now spearheading the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’, Prasad said the Congress leader is supposedly working to unite the country but has not even disowned Suresh’s comments.
While Congress leaders regularly charge the BJP with violating the Constitution and “abuse” Prime Minister Narendra Modi by calling him a dictator and alleging that he will not let elections take place in the future, they have maintained a conspicuous silence on such a comment by their MP against the constitution, Prasad said.
Rejecting the MP’s charge of discrimination, he said Modi had recently inaugurated a Boeing facility in Karnataka and the state has been given a tax share of over Rs 1.35 lakh-crore during 2014-19 against Rs 53,996 crore during 2009-14 when the Congress-led UPA was in power. Meanwhile, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi on Friday demanded an apology from Congress leader Sonia Gandhi over her party’s Lok Sabha member D K Suresh demanding a separate nation comprising southern states by alleging bias in budgetary allocations.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in Parliament, Joshi said Congress member Suresh had demanded a separate nation comprising southern states. The remarks were an insult to the Constitution and its architect Babasaheb Ambedkar, he said.
“I condemn the statement of the Congress member and demand that the matter be referred to the Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha,” Joshi said.
Members of the opposition INDIA bloc, including the Congress and the DMK, were on their feet trying to make some point as Joshi made the statement in the House. They later walked out for a brief while. Joshi said the Congress leadership should clarify whether it subscribed to the views of Suresh — the brother of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar.
“The Congress traditions on dividing the country still persists. I demand that Sonia Gandhi take action against the member and also clarify whether the party supports the views of the Congress member,” the parliamentary affairs minister said. (PTI)
