‘No shots fired during protest march’: BJP attacks Rahul Gandhi for ‘lying’ in Parliament

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday hit out at Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of “speaking lies” in the Lower House, while asserting that the no firing took place during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led march to Parliament on July 20.

A controversy erupted after LoP Gandhi targeted Union Home Minister Amit Shah over alleged police excesses against protesters in the national capital.

Addressing a press conference, BJP MP Sambit Patra said: “Rahul Gandhi was speaking lies, attempting to mislead the country and trying to create ruckus within the Lok Sabha because if lies are spread and undignified words are used then interventions will be made to seek verification of the remarks and unparliamentary words will be expunged (from records).”

Patra added: “We strongly condemn Rahul Gandhi’s statement that shots were fired on the students during the July 20 ‘Sansad Chalo’ march. The Bharatiya Janta Party officially states, after all discussions, that shots were not fired. Rahul Gandhi lied. He blamed Union Home Minister Amit Shah for passing the order to open fire which is also a lie, because since no such thing took place then there is no question of passing an order.”

The BJP MP mentioned that wherever protests of this scale are staged and the Army or police are deployed, “a magistrate is present at that place who takes on-the-spot decision whether or not to conduct cane charge, or to use force or not.”

“So such a decision is not taken by the Home Minister but by the Magistrate…the LoP should be aware of this,” Patra said.

He added: “In fact, Priyanka ji (Gandhi) and other MPs were speaking to Rahul Gandhi (during his speech), they must be telling him the facts but despite that…he made the ‘firing’ remark to mislead people.”

On Rahul Gandhi raising questions over Home Minister Amit Shah’s absence in the Parliament, Patra said: “The Home Minister doesn’t secretly go to foreign trips like you. He does public events wherever he goes, his events are published in the public domain, on social media and the media is also aware. He (Amit Shah) was within the Parliament premises at that time but still Rahul Gandhi questioned his absence.”

He remarked that Rahul Gandhi spoke about the Home Minister just to “sensationalise the issue”.

Referring to LoP Gandhi’s ‘idiot’ jibes, the BJP leader said: “What he (Rahul Gandhi) meant was either the students are of three categories or the citizens or those who were protesting at Jantar Mantar were of three categories. He said that one category is that of student, second is ‘idiots’ and third is ‘andhbhakt’.”

“It is an insult to the students…none of them are ‘idiots or andhbhakt’,” he added.

Patra also said that if Rahul Gandhi meant to categorise the Jantar Mantar protesters, “then since several opposition leaders too met the agitating students at the site, was he calling the leaders ‘idiots’? Also, does he mean that the supporters of CJP were ‘andhbhakts’ who didn’t have a conscience?”

In a reference to the CJP, the BJP MP said: “If the remarks were meant for the Jantar Mantar agitators, then it should affect them too.”

Moreover, he asserted that if LoP Gandhi was categorising the citizens of the country as ‘idiots’ and ‘anbhakts’ then the “nation won’t forgive him”.

–IANS