Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar has rejected the Congress' privilege motion against Union Home Minister Amit Shah. As per Dhankar, the statements made by Shah showed "no transgression" and "adhered to the truth."
The motion, moved by Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh, was in response to Shah's comments on the PM Relief Fund during a discussion on disaster management.
In his speech in the Rajya Sabha, Shah alleged that one family controlled the fund during the UPA government.
"The PM relief fund was made during the Congress regime, and during this government tenure, the PM Cares fund was started. During the Congress regime only one family had control and the Congress president was the member of this. The Congress President a part of a Government fund, what reply will they give to the people of this country. Does not anyone read or see this?" stated Shah.
This statement was interpreted by the by the Congress as targeting veteran leader Sonia Gandhi.
As per Congress, these statements by Shah were a "breach of privilege and contempt of the House”.
"As may be seen perusal of the above, even though the Home Minister didn't take the name of Smt. Sonia Gandhi but he had categorically by implication referred to her and imputed motives to her vis-à-vis the functioning of the National Prime Minister's Relief Fund (NPMRF),” said Ramesh.
Rajya Sabha Dhankar, however, rejected this motion. As per Dhankar, there was no transgression in Shah's statements and the Home Minister had an "absolute adherence to truth."
"I have declined with a deep sense of anguish and pain that we rushed to invoke breach of privilege. We rush to the media, give it traction, try to tarnish image. And I have said on number of occasions, this House will not be a platform to ruin reputations of people. We have to protect,” he said.
