BJP throttling Oppn's voice: Adhir

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, August 12

A day after his suspension from the Lok Sabha, Congress Legislature Party leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday accused the ruling BJP of throttling the Opposition’s voice by resorting to various “draconian steps”.

Addressing a press conference here, Chowdhury said he may challenge his suspension in the Supreme Court. The Congress leader raised the issue of heckling by the treasury benches on Thursday when he said PM Narendra Modi had now become “Nirav Modi” (a pun on the name of the fugitive billionaire). Chowdhury, while taking part in the debate on the no-confidence motion moved in the Lok Sabha on the Manipur issue, also compared the PM with “Dhritarashtra”, the blind king of the epic “Mahabharata”. Explaining the “Dhritarashtra” remark, Chowdhury today said allegories are integral part of a language. “If someone is oversleeping, don’t we say the person is sleeping like Kumbhakarana or if a person is overgenerous don’t we call the person Raja Harishchandra,” Chowdhury said.

On calling the Prime Minister “Nirav Modi”, Chowdhury said ‘nirav’ means silent. According to Chowdhury, he was criticising PM Modi’s silence on Manipur when he called him “Nirav Modi”. He was suspended from the Lok Sabha on Thursday for “repeated misconduct” pending an investigation by the privileges committee.

Describing his suspension a “retrogressive step”, he said he had been placed in a queer situation where he had been hanged first and made to face the trial later.