Meenakshi Lekhi denies signing reply to Parliament question

New Delhi, December 9

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) technically corrected the name of the minister authoring reply to a question in Parliament over Hamas after an online warring between Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi and a scribe. Later at a press conference, Lekhi said she had spoken to Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra and sought an investigation and action against those responsible for naming her as the minister who replied to the written question on Friday.

“I would like to clarify that I have not signed any paper regarding that question. I have tagged the PMO and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar regarding the breach,” the MoS said.

It all began after a scribe posted on X a snapshot of the reply to a question which listed Lekhi as the minister who had answered. “You have been misinformed as I have not signed any paper with this question and this answer,” Lekhi posted back.

“It has to be found out who committed this from the MEA without the signature of the minister concerned. I hope that there will be a prompt inquiry into the matter,” she added.

The MEA subsequently said a question on the Sansad website being shown under the name of Lekhi needed ‘technical correction’ and instead be attributed to her colleague V Muraleedharan.

The question titled “Declaration of Hamas as terrorist organisation” was posed by K Sudhakaran (Congress) and the reply was that, “the designation of an organisation as terrorist is covered under the ULPA and declaring any organisation as terrorist is considered as per the provisions of the Act by the relevant government departments”.