NEW DELHI: Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi today met Speaker Om Birla and said reference to Emergency made by the chair could have been avoided.
Rahul Gandhi along with other INDIA bloc Lok Sabha members went to meet the Speaker today to thank him for recognising him as the LoP. In the conversation that followed, Gandhi told the Speaker that the reference to Emergency need not have been made by him.
“It was a courtesy call. The Speaker declared Rahul Gandhi as the Leader of Opposition and after that he along with other INDIA alliance partner leaders met the Speaker”, Congress Lok Sabha member KC Venugopal told reporters outside the Parliament.
Soon after his election as LS Speaker, Birla had on Wednesday set off a firestorm by reading out a resolution condemning the imposition of Emergency as an attack on the Constitution by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, an act that triggered vociferous protests by Congress member in the House.
Birla recalled that it was on June 26, 1975 that the country woke up to the cruel realities of Emergency, when the government jailed opposition leaders and imposed many restrictions on the media. Asked whether Gandhi discussed the reference to Emergency made by the Speaker, Venugopal said, “We discussed many things about Parliament functioning. Of course, this issue also came up.”