Rajya Sabha witnessed an uproar with the NDA and the opposition facing off over Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar. The trigger was BJP MP Ghanshyam Tiwari’s remarks on leader of opposition Mallikarjun Kharge, leading to an acrimonious exchange between Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and SP MP Jaya Bachchan.
Jaya protested what she called the “unacceptable tone” of the chairman’s remarks and said he was a “colleague” sitting on the chair. An infuriated Dhankhar accused the opposition of working to disrupt the House and destabilise the country. Soon, matters had escalated to a wider confrontation between the treasury and opposition benches with the former seeing the disruptions as part of a destabilisation plan and the latter accusing the chairman of being partisan.
Dhankhar argued that Tiwari had only praised Kharge in his remarks but the opposition claimed he was trying to shield the BJP MP. As she stood to make a point in the middle of a heated exchange, Jaya said she was an artist and understood body language and expressions.
“Forgive me but your tone is not acceptable. We are colleagues, sir. You may be sitting in the chair, and I remember when I went to school…” she said. A visibly angry Dhankhar interrupted her and said he “did not want to be schooled”, repeatedly saying “enough of it”.
Jaya had for the last few days felt annoyed over being called Jaya Amitabh Bachchan, and felt that mention of her husband’s name in her introduction was an injustice to her as an individual. However, Dhankhar as well as his deputy Harivansh have pointed out that they are bound by the rule that a member would be identified by the name as it was in official records.
Sources in the RS secretariat concurred. “We go by the full name mentioned in our records. So those whose middle names include names of their fathers or their villages are addressed by their full names rather than their abridged versions,” a source said, adding that members have the option of approaching the RS secretariat for additions, subtractions or changes in spellings.
As the opposition walked out of the House, NDA MPs expressed solidarity with Dhankhar and demanded an apology from Jaya.
