Stepping up his attack against parliamentary panel on information technology chairman Shashi Tharoor, Bharatiya Janata Party MP and a member of the panel Nishikant Dubey on Thursday wrote a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker requesting him to remove the Congress leader from the post.
IMAGE: Congress Party leader Shashi Tharoor speaks to media outside Parliament. Photograph: R Raveendran/ANI Photo
Citing the Lok Sabha rules, Dubey requested Speaker Om Birla to appoint any other member as the chairman of the committee in his place.
Taking a dig at Tharoor, Dubey alleged,”speaking in ‘Spencerian’ English with a foreign accent does not give freedom to an individual to not only disregard our glorious parliamentary institutions/organs to meet his own political ambitions but also to abuse our constitution.”
Ever since Tharoor has become the panel head, “he is running the affairs of the committee in a thoroughly unprofessional manner and to serve his political agenda of spreading rumours and defaming my party,” Dubey said in the letter.
“..it would be highly improper for Dr. Shashi Tharoor to continue and regulate the proceedings of the committee. I, therefore, appeal to your good self to persuade Dr. Tharoor to proceed on leave and thereafter,… choose another member of the Committee to act as Chairperson,” Dubey said in the letter.
Dubey and Tharoor have filed breach of privilege notices against each other on Wednesday after a spat on social media over the Congress leader’s remarks on summmoning the Facebook India executives over reports that the social media giant went soft on some BJP leaders who had made hate speeches ahead of the general elections last year.
While Dubey said Tharoor was treating the committee as an extension of Congress party, the Congress leader had alleged that the BJP MP made “disparaging remarks” on social media over his decision to summon a panel meeting to discuss the alleged “misconduct” of Facebook.
After Dubey, another BJP MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has shot off a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker against Tharoor for speaking in public about his intention to summon Facebook officials without discussing the matter first in the parliamentary committee the Congress leader heads.
“Issuing statements as to who would be summoned and what would be the agenda of the meeting is absolutely uncalled for and is violative of the procedures of the Lok Sabha. The proclivity of the IT committee chairman to speak to media first undermines the functioning of the committee members and the committee itself,” Rathore told reporters on Thursday.
He is also a member of the committee which Tharoor heads.
He said he has written a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in this regard.
Rathore, a former Union minister, said the IT committee members have no issue on “summoning whosoever the committee feels needs to be summoned for the protection of the rights of citizens of our country” but added that the matter should be discussed in the panel first.