Author: Radhika Ramaseshan
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: December 6, 2014
URL:   http://www.telegraphindia.com/1141206/jsp/nation/story_2339.jsp#.VIJJ_dKUeSo

Censure CM, says party

The BJP today hit back at the Opposition for demanding minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti's resignation and a censure motion against her, asking why the same steps should then not be taken against Mamata Banerjee.

"The Opposition's demands smack of hypocrisy of the worst kind, of double standards," Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters.

"What does it have to say of Mamata's remarks on Amit Shah? First, take Mamata's name. The BJP responds with contempt to the use of such double standard."

Prasad's allusion was to the Bengal chief minister's crude references to the "bamboo" and accompanying gesticulations during a speech this week.

His comments followed a joint statement against the Sadhvi this morning by Rajya Sabha members from the Congress, Trinamul, CPM, CPI, Samajwadi Party and some other Opposition groups. Niranjan Jyoti had made a derogatory remark against the minorities at a public event early this week.

"The Prime Minister disapproved of the Sadhvi's statements, but what do Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have to say on Mamata?" Prasad asked.

"From our party, the PM instantly responded when a small leader spoke. But what do the Gandhis have to say of a chief minister who utters things we cannot repeat? Will they ask for a censure motion against Mamata?"

The Opposition statement (which the AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal and the Nationalist Congress Party did not sign) stressed that the signatories represented a "majority" in the Rajya Sabha.

It said they had informed the House business advisory committee that they would propose a motion of censure against the Sadhvi for comments that were "not acceptable and deserved to be condemned".

Prasad slammed the Opposition's attempts to leverage its majority in the upper House to corner the government, a strategy the Trinamul had evolved and urged the Congress and the others to adopt.

"If pressure tactics are devised contingent to a situation that prevails in the Rajya Sabha, they have long-term implications," Prasad said.

The Opposition statement said that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, he "did not meet the basic issue of removal of the concerned minister from the Union council of ministers or even censure her comments".

Therefore, it said, the Opposition had thought of the House adopting a censure motion to resolve the impasse.

The statement added that since the government had not accepted its "reasonable" proposal and "continued to remain obdurate and highly unreasonable", the Opposition had no option but to continue protesting against remarks that "run against the grain of our pluralistic ethos".

It signed off with a renewed appeal to the government to adopt a common resolution condemning the "attempts to outrage our Constitution by making inflammatory speeches".

The BJP asked why a censure or apology had not been mooted when Sonia dubbed Modi a " maut ka saudagar (merchant of death)" during the 2007 Gujarat election campaign or former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma called Modi a "butcher".

A BJP source claimed that Modi had been "fair" to the Opposition by "volunteering" a statement in Parliament, asking the Sadhvi to apologise and himself regretting her comments. Modi had urged the House to accept the minister's apology.