Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi appeared to have dozed off in the Lok Sabha today during a discussion on attack on dalits in Gujarat, inviting barbs from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party while the Congress defended its vice president and suggested that he was checking his mobile.
The Congress also showed a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha from November last year to claim that it shows he was also sleeping in the House.
Gandhi was caught on the Lok Sabha TV with his eyes closed and appeared to be catching forty winks when Home Minister Rajnath Singh was replying to a short discussion on the issue of attack by vigilantes on Dalit youths who were skinning a dead cow in Una in Gir-Somnath district.
Attacking the Congress leader, the Bharatiya Janata Party said he was only interested in doing politics on Dalit victims and not in their getting justice.
"It shows that his heart is not on providing justice to Dalit victims. He just wants to do politics. If he was really interested in ensuring justice, then he would not be sleeping," Union Minister Thaavar Chand Gehlot said.
Taking a dig, BSP chief Mayawati said it showed how serious Gandhi was about dalits.
"This publicity is going on that the Congress vice president will go to the spot (in Gujarat) but he was sleeping when the issue was being debated in the House. It shows how serious he is about it," she said.
Putting up a strong defence, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said it was an attempt to trivialise and debase an important issue with a "false" story.
"It is completely false and is condemnably false story that somebody is sleeping in the House. The last I heard was that checking one's cell phone is neither a crime nor negligence."
He said, "What I am castigating in the strongest possible words this attempt, be it by the media or any other quarters, to trivialise, debase and devalue a most important issue. We are discussing dalit issue and your focus on this great story that you are running which is false."
The party also showed a photograph of Modi in the Lok Sabha on November 26, 2015 in which, it claimed, he appears to be sleeping.
Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury said, "He (Gandhi) was not sleeping. How can someone sleep amidst so much noise? It is so hot outside and we close our eyes inside the House to relax and get relief from the burning sensation caused after standing in sun for long outside.
"The atmosphere inside is cool and we rest our eyes to retain moisture. Media makes up things...."
Gehlot, addressing the press conference, said Opposition leaders such as Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati and Arvind Kejriwal did not visit Kerala and Agra when Dalits were killed.
He alleged that Congress and BSP were doing politics with an eye on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls slated next year, and claimed Opposition parties raised similar issues before the Bihar assembly elections last year and "forgot" about them after that.
He also raked up the Mirchpur case in Haryana, in which Dalits were killed and many of them were forced to leave the village, when Congress was in power in the state with Bhupinder Singh Hooda as the chief minister.
Gehlot, a Dalit face of the BJP, also appealed to the people of Gujarat to observe restraint and not to do anything that causes tension in the society and harms the country.
Dalits have been agitating in the state, protesting alleged inaction of the state government.
The Congress has claimed that the violence against them was "BJP-sponsored" as it was trying to polarise communities ahead of the state election to be held next year.
"I have been trying to speak in Rajya Sabha over the issue for three days but they (Opposition) are unwilling to listen. They are trying to politicise it while we are doing everything to provide the justice to victims," Gehlot said.
This is the third time Rahul has been photographed sleeping in the House.
Image: A screen grab of Rahul Gandhi taking a nap in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday morning. Photograph source: Lo Sabha TV/screengrab
