Parl protest melee: Cong claims Kharge pushed, Rahul manhandled

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of lowering the dignity of Parliament, the Congress on Thursday claimed that BJP MPs pushed its chief Mallikarjun Kharge and "physically manhandled" Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.

In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, senior Congress MPs asked him to initiate an inquiry into the incident. Separate marches by opposition and ruling party MPs over the alleged insult to B R Ambedkar led to jostling in Parliament premises in the morning, leaving BJP MPs Pratap Chandra Sarangi and Mukesh Rajput injured.

The BJP accused Rahul Gandhi of pushing the senior member, a charge rejected by the Congress leader.

Several Congress leaders, including Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Gaurav Gogoi and K C Venugopal, spoke on the matter.

The Congress said BJP MPs had sticks in their hands and Kharge was threatened and pushed.

Kharge, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, wrote to Birla, claiming he was physically pushed by BJP MPs in Parliament premises following which he lost his balance.

"I was physically pushed by BJP MPs; lost my balance and was forced to sit down on ground in front of Makar Dwar... This inflicted injuries on my knees which have already undergone surgery," Kharge said.

Kharge asked the speaker to order an inquiry into the BJP MPs "pushing" him, and said it was an assault not just on him but on the Rajya Sabha LoP and the Congress president.

"I was trying to enter Parliament and the BJP MPs were stopping me, pushing me and threatening me," Rahul Gandhi told reporters in Parliament premises.

Asked if Kharge and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi had also been pushed, Rahul Gandhi said, "It has happened but we don't get bothered with this pushing around."

"This is the entry to Parliament, we have a right to go inside and the BJP members were stopping us from going inside," he alleged and pointed to the Makar Dwar.

In their letter to Birla, some senior Congress MPs said they were writing to express their "deep anguish" over the incident that happened when members of the INDIA alliance were peacefully protesting and marching from the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar statue to Makar Dwar.

"However, as we attempted to enter the Parliament through Makar Dwar, the protesting MPs were physically obstructed from entering," said the letter signed by Congress MPs K C Venugopal, Kodikunnil Suresh, Ravindra Chavan Dean Kuriakose and V K Sreekandan.

"We would also like to bring to your notice that Shri Rahul Gandhi Leader of Opposition was physically manhandled by three MPs from the ruling party. This is a clear violation of the privileges extended to the Leader of Opposition and infringes on the rights accorded to him in his official capacity as an MP," they said.

Their conduct was not only a blatant assault on the personal dignity of Rahul Gandhi, but antithetical to the democratic spirit of our parliament, the letter said.

The MPs expressed the hope that the speaker would treat this matter with utmost seriousness and take appropriate action.

In a post in Hindi on X, Kharge added, "After insulting Baba Saheb Dr. Ambedkar ji, Narendra Modiji also gets the dignity of the Parliament insulted. BJP MPs were armed with placards with thick sticks and were made to push and shove to stop the peaceful protest of INDIA alliance MPs so that their animosity towards Babasaheb, Parliament, Constitution and democracy is not exposed."

"But we will stand firm, we will not tolerate any derogatory comments on Babasaheb. Everyone in the country will strongly oppose BJP/RSS," he said.

According to Congress general secretary Venugopal, the "farcical drama" in Parliament House was a grand display of the "BJP's Save Ambedkar-virodhi Amit Shah' mission".

For the past 15 days, the Opposition has been peacefully protesting in Parliament House on various issues and no incidents of mishandling or disruptions have been reported, he said.

"The speaker explicitly instructed that the passage to the House must not be blocked. Security guards were entrusted with managing the entrance. We have always complied, never obstructed the way, and cooperated peacefully with security personnel.
Today, after our peaceful dharna at Prerna Sthal and a walk around Samvidhan Sadan carrying posters, we were shocked to witness BJP MPs blocking entrances with sticks attached to posters," he said.

Strangely, no security guards were present despite this being a violation of the Speaker's directives, Venugopal said.

"In a disgraceful turn of events, the stick-wielding BJP MPs pushed the Hon'ble Congress president, a senior and respected leader, while the LoP in Lok Sabha was also prevented and pushed from entering the House," he alleged.

"These unruly BJP MPs were clearly the ones responsible for vitiating the atmosphere and lowering the dignity of Parliament. No theatrics or trickery will save them from accountability for the disrespectful comments made by Amit Shah against Babasaheb Ambedkar."

He said the party will take the issue to the streets across the country until the Home minister steps down for his remarks on Ambedkar.

Congress' deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi said, "Today I saw the BJP MPs being hostile and threatening towards Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and LoP Rahul Gandhi. The BJP MPs had sticks in their hands. I saw with my own eyes how Mallikarjun Kharge was being threatened and pushed."