Rahul Gandhi meets Lok Sabha Speaker, urges him to expunge ‘derogatory’ comments against him

The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said on Wednesday, December 11, that he held a meeting with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and urged him to remove allegations against him by BJP members of parliament. Gandhi also said that the Congress wants the House to function.

“I held a meeting with the Speaker. I told him that derogatory comments against me should be expunged. The Speaker said that he would look into it…Our aim is that the House must run and discussion should happen in the House. No matter what they say about me, we want to have a debate on 13th December…They don’t want a discussion on Adani. In the end, we will not leave this. They will keep levelling allegations on us but the House must function,” Gandhi told reporters.

“We want debate and discussion to happen. On December 13, there was a commitment to have a debate on the Constitution. We want that debate to happen. They can say anything about me. They can. On December 13, there will be debate,” he added.

On December 5, BJP Lok Sabha MPs Nishikant Dubey and Sambit Patra alleged that Congress’s top leaders have connections with Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist and investor George Soros.

The following day, Dubey brought up Soros and the global investigative news network OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) in the House, saying “Congress has relations with OCCRP, which gets all its funds from the US government and George Soros. Did Rahul Gandhi take money from George Soros for the Bharat Jodo Yatra?”

The statement made by him resulted in a protest by Congress MPs. After this, the House was adjourned.

Gandhi has accused the BJP of creating “unfounded” allegations to divert the attention from the Adani issue, over which the Congress staged a dramatic protest in the Parliament on Monday, December 9.

(With inputs from agencies)