‘Public Reps Being Treated Like Criminals’

Congress MP Jyothimani posted a video of herself being taken away in a police bus on Wednesday (Twitter: @jothims)

A woman MP of the Congress on Wednesday claimed that her clothes were torn while being detained by the police during the party’s protest against alleged misuse of investigative agencies, with Rahul Gandhi saying public representatives were being treated “like criminals”.

Congress MP Jyothimani posted a video of herself being taken away in a police bus. “Is this how a Lok Sabha member should be treated?” she asked in the video, pointing to her torn clothes.

Tagging Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in a tweet, Jyothimani said they have not done anything to bring down the dignity of the house except raising the issue of price rise and GST. “But we are suspended. Is this the way women MPs are treated repeatedly?” she said. “Don’t we deserve the dignity? It will not deter us. But it’s shameful to all of us,” she added.

Tagging Jyothimani’s video, Rahul Gandhi said public representatives, who put the sufferings of the citizens of the country on the table of Parliament, are being treated “like criminals”.

“Actually this is ‘unparliamentary’,” he said in a Facebook post in Hindi. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also shared Jyothimani’s video on Twitter and said, “Mr. Prime Minister, these MPs have been elected by the people. Questions on the issues of inflation, unemployment are the questions of the public.”

“Tearing the clothes of women MPs for asking questions, dragging them is extreme cruelty. In a democracy, you have to listen to questions on issues. Why are you so scared of questions?” she said.

Meanwhile, several Congress parliamentarians were detained near Parliament on Wednesday as they tried to carry out a protest march from Parliament House to Rashtrapati Bhawan over the misuse of central probe agencies by the government and no discussion on important issues like inflation in Parliament.

The Parliamentarians had planned to give a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu over the central government’s alleged vendetta politics and no discussion of important issues like price rise in Parliament.

However, as they moved forward to give a memorandum to the President, the Delhi Police stopped them mid-way near Vijay Chowk. “We wanted to give a memorandum to President Murmu but the Delhi Police has for the second consecutive time stopped and detained us,” party leader Manish Tewari said. (PTI)