The Congress vs BJP protest war – over Home Minister Amit Shah’s “Ambedkar is the fashion” quip in the Rajya Sabha – moved to the Parliament Street Police Station Thursday afternoon, with MPs from the two parties trading complaints and allegations of physical assault of their women leaders.
Women MPs from the Congress marched on the police station to file their complaints.
This was shortly after the BJP’s Nagaland MP – Phangnon Konyak – accused the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi of misbehaving with her as she and her colleagues were carrying out their protest. In a letter to Congress boss Mallikarjun Kharge, she said Mr Gandhi had “misbehaved with her in a loud voice and his physical proximity… was so close that I, being a lady MP, felt extremely uncomfortable”.
“I was standing just below the staircase of the Makar Dawar (the Parliament’s main entrance) with a placard in my hand… suddenly the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Gandhi), with other party members, came in front of me despite there being a passage created for them (to enter the building).”
“I stepped aside with (a) heavy heart and denouncing my democratic right but felt that no Member of Parliament should behave this way,” she said in a letter to Rajya Sabha Chair Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Ms Konyak’s letter provided further fuel for the BJP’s ferocious attack today on the Congress and Rahul Gandhi, whom they have also accused of shoving and injuring two of its MPs.
And it also followed two BJP MPs – Anurag Thakur and Bansuri Swaraj – marching on the same police station to file a case against Mr Gandhi.
Earlier today chaos erupted outside Parliament as the BJP and the opposition, led by the Congress, mounted protests and counterprotests over Mr Shah’s remark on Dr Ambedkar.
During the chaos two BJP MPs – Pratap Chandra Sarangi and Mukesh Rajput – were injured. Mr Sarangi said he fell and hurt his head after Mr Gandhi pushed a third person who then fell on him.
Mr Gandhi responded strongly, telling reporters it was, in fact, some BJP MPs who were blocking his entry into Parliament, and that they were pushing and shoving him.