Taking exception to the expunction of certain remarks from his speech made in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, February 8, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday, February 9,  shot off a letter to Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, saying that it will be an “inversion of the system of governance” if Opposition MPs are to investigate, gather evidence and then raise issues in Parliament.

Dhankhar expunged Kharge’s remarks linking Prime Minister Narendra Modi with industrialist Gautam Adani and his charge that the PM remains silent on hate speech by BJP leaders.

Referring to Dhankhar’s direction to authenticate the charges with evidence, Kharge said Parliament was a platform to fix the accountability of the Executive and criticism of policies and decisions of the government should not be construed as allegations against any member of the House.

Kharge wrote that criticism of the government was natural in a parliamentary democracy. Arguing that there was no personal charge in any of his remarks, Kharge said an MP was required to authenticate only if any document was laid by the MP on the table of the House.

There was no convention of authentication of points made in a speech in Parliament, Kharge said. Any direction or rule of the House could not subvert the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech laid down for an MP through Article 105. “The member, after due diligence, draws the attention of the House to such issues and it is incumbent upon the government to investigate the matter and take appropriate action in consonance with the law of the land,” the Congress MP wrote.