DMK MP Calls Out Union Govt on Flood Preparedness, BJP Tries to Duck by Terming Criticism ‘Anti-Dalit’

New Delhi: In December, Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankar diverted a tussle with the Opposition over his partisanship, to an issue about his caste, the Jat community. Today once again, treasury benches in the Lok Sabha sought to make comments by a Tamil Nadu Opposition MP on the Union government’s failure “to forewarn the government and the public about floods”, about the minister’s caste.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded an apology from the DMK following its Lok Sabha MP T.R. Baalu calling Union minister of state for fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying L. Murugan “unfit” to be in parliament. The remark was termed “anti-Dalit” by the treasury benches.

During the question hour on Tuesday, DMK MP Baalu while asking a question relating to damages caused due to natural disasters referred to the floods in Tamil Nadu in December and said that the state did not have an updated forewarning system.

“Because Chennai has not got an updated forewarning system and the systems are obsolete and not updated. They have miserably failed to forewarn the government and the public. Because of that 100,000 people have been stranded," he said.

He was then interrupted by Murugan who started interjecting while Baalu was speaking.

"Please sit down," said Baalu to Murugan.

He then asked Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla to "intervene" to stop Murugan from interrupting Baalu's speech.

"He should know some discipline," said Baalu. "You are unfit to be a member of parliament. Please sit down. You are unfit to be a minister also. You don't have the guts to face questions also.”

Union parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi and Union minister for law and justice Arjun Ram Meghwal both then interjected and said that Baalu could not refer to a Union minister as "unfit".

The two ministers asked for his remarks to be expunged from the records of the House.

"He should apologise for calling a Dalit minister 'unfit'," said Joshi.

"You cannot insult a Dalit mantri," said Meghwal.

Amid chants of "T.R. Baalu must apologise", Opposition benches then chanted from their benches that their voices are being muzzled in parliament. They demanded answers from the Modi government.

Baalu rejected the charges hurled by BJP members, doubled down and said that Murugan was “unfit to be in parliament itself”.

Baalu along with other members of the Opposition then staged a walkout, while his remarks were expunged from the house records.

Poor precedent

BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri in the special session of Parliament last year had hurled Islamophobic slurs, insults and abuse at then-BSP MP Danish Ali, all of which had led to just a mild response from the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. As The Wire reported, Ali had to write to the Lok Sabha Speaker, Birla, on the “violation of established parliamentary procedures’’ in the conduct of the proceedings of the privileges committee and the ethics committee.

In the matter of the complaint Ali and several other Opposition MPs filed against Bidhuri for his abusive conduct related specifically to his faith, the privileges committee had surprisingly heard the BJP MP – but Ali has not been heard as yet. Bidhuri has meanwhile been assigned charge of the BJP election in Tonk, seen as an area where Muslims are significant in terms of their presence and impact on electoral politics.

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