Rajya Sabha: Opposition stalls proceedings over Shah's remarks on Ambedkar

The Rajya Sabha was on Wednesday rocked by protests from Opposition members who demanded an apology from Union Home Minister Amit Shah, claiming his remarks in the House a day earlier were an "insult" to the architect of India's Constitution B R Ambedkar.

Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju accused the Congress of misleading the country by using only a part of Shah's remarks made in the Rajya Sabha and asserted that the Home Minister had in very clear words mentioned how the Congress party had insulted Ambedkar.

"You (Congress) cannot use an 11-12 second clip out of Shah's entire speech and mislead the nation," Rijiju said and asserted that for the BJP, Ambedkar is equivalent to God.

However, the opposition was unrelenting. Amid sloganeering, the House was adjourned for the day soon after it met post-lunch.

In the morning, after the listed papers and reports were tabled and the House went ahead with the scheduled Zero Hour, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh rose and alleged that Shah insulted Ambedkar with his remarks during the debate on the Constitution.

Several other Congress members were on their feet and started raising slogans like "'Ambedkar ka apamaan nai sahega Hindustan' (India will not tolerate Ambedkar's insult)".

Countering them, Rijiju said it was the Congress that insulted Ambedkar and did not honour him with a Bharat Ratna.

Congress President and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge raised a poster of Ambedkar. Amid an uproar, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar adjourned the proceedings within a few minutes till 2 pm.

When the Upper House re-assembled post lunch at 2 pm, Rijiju said two Bills were listed for the day -- the Appropriation Bill and the Banking Regulation Bill. He requested the Opposition parties to allow the House to function and start the discussion on the Banking Regulation Bill.

However, as sloganeering by members of the opposition parties continued, Chairman Dhankhar said Babasaheb Ambedkar is a father figure for all, being the architect of the Indian Constitution.

Congress leader Pramod Tiwari sought to raise a point of order, claiming that Shah "insulted" Ambedkar a day earlier.

Rejecting Tiwari's claim, Rijiju accused the Congress of misleading the country by using only a part of Shah's remarks made in the Rajya Sabha.

He said the Home Minister in his speech had in very clear words mentioned how the Congress party had insulted Ambedkar.

The Parliamentary Affairs minister said the Opposition was trying to mislead the nation by using only an "11-12 second" clip from Shah's entire speech.

Rijiju explained that the Home Minister had on Tuesday said that the Congress hatched a conspiracy to defeat Ambedkar when he contested for polls from Mumbai and later from Vidarbha.

The minister demanded that the Congress must apologise to the nation, alleging that Ambedkar wanted to get re-elected to the Lok Sabha but was not allowed to do so by the Congress, which forced him to leave electoral politics.

Rijiju also said that until 1990, the Congress-led government refused to give a Bharat Ratna to Ambedkar.

He accused the Congress of attempting to malign and remove Ambedkar's name from India's history while trying to garner votes by using his name.

"You (Congress) cannot use an 11-12 second clip out of Shah's entire speech and mislead the nation. It is not correct", he said, adding for the BJP, Ambedkar is equivalent to God.

At this, Kharge repeated Shah's remark and said it only showed the minister's disrespect towards the architect of the Constitution.

Kharge claimed that Shah had "made fun of" Ambedkar by saying that "if they (Congress) had taken God's name as many times, it would have attained a place in heaven in all of its seven births".

The Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha argued that this was an insult to Ambedkar, to which Rijiju said that he was again trying to mislead the House.

Leader of the House J P Nadda stood up in Shah's defence, saying that Kharge was trying to "mislead" the nation through Parliament and accused the Congress of treating Ambedkar with disdain and disrespect.

Nadda rejected Kharge's claim and alleged that it was the Congress that had disrespected Ambedkar during his lifetime due to which he had resigned from the Union Cabinet.

Members of both treasury benches and the opposition raised slogans against each other and TMC MPs walked out in protest.Amid the uproar, Chairman Dhankhar adjourned the House for the day.