Rahul Gandhi Speech: What Were the Remarks Expunged by Lok Sabha Speaker?

All remarks in which the Congress leader expressed curiosity or spoke about Prime Minister Modi’s alleged links and long-lasting relationship with Gautam Adani have been removed.

New Delhi: Hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave his speech in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, the Congress said that portions of Rahul Gandhi’s speech that hit out at the prime minister for allegedly facilitating the unencumbered growth of Adani Group have been expunged from the Parliamentary records at the speaker Om Birla’s behest.

Congress spokesperson Gurdeep Singh Sappal announced on Twitter that on Birla’s order, 18 portions of Gandhi’s speech were expunged. He went on to ask, “Hopefully, you too would have listened to his speech. Was it unparliamentary? Is it the same parliament, where opposition leaders were always allowed to freely air their views?”

In another tweet, he said that all the expunged portions contained questions asked by Gandhi to the prime minister “on relationship with Adani, including their travels…”.

Sappal asked the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who objected to Gandhi’s allegations and remarks against Modi, whether or not the prime minister can be criticised in the Parliament. He also claimed that many newspapers carried some of Gandhi’s expunged remarks on Wednesday and a few reporters asked if the Lok Sabha could take any action against them. 

In a copy carrying all expunged portions that Sappal shared with The Wire, it is evident all remarks in which Gandhi expressed curiosity or spoke about the prime minister’s alleged links and long-lasting relationship with Gautam Adani have been removed.

For instance, at one stage, Gandhi spoke about how people he met during the Bharat Jodo Yatra expressed their surprise over the Adani Group’s success in every sector that he entered over the last few years, and added that people were curious about Gautam Adani’s relationship with Modi. While the initial few sentences were kept in the records, the last sentence in which Gandhi asks about the relationship between the two has been expunged.

Gandhi’s allegation that the GVK Group was forced to sell the Mumbai airport contract to the Adani Group because of the Modi government’s arbitrary raids against the company has also been removed.

Similarly, the portions in which Gandhi alleged that Adani has been a constant presence in Modi’s foreign travels and has resultantly been the biggest beneficiary of government contracts despite having no experience in some of the sectors like defence or airports have also been expunged. Some other expunged portions include Gandhi’s allegation that some of the most lucrative business contracts in defence and coal sectors that Adani secured happened immediately after Modi’s visit to Israel and Australia. Likewise, where Gandhi’s sought to establish that Adani’s new business ventures coincided with some of the Union government’s new development policies in infrastructure, energy and so on to allege cronyism has been expunged too.

On Tuesday, Birla had objected to some of the claims made by Gandhi and had also asked him to stop showing two photographs, one of which showed Modi and Gautam Adani together in a flight cabin and the other Modi waving at people while boarding a flight allegedly owned by the Adani Group. Amidst the BJP MPs’ protests against Gandhi’s allegations, Birla kept requesting the Congress leader and other members to not make any accusation without proof.

An exchange between Birla and Gandhi followed at the end of his speech when Birla asked Gandhi to refrain from making a comment that microphones could be muted if an opposition member criticises the Union government. Gandhi responded by saying that the reality was that microphones have been previously muted before when opposition members attempted to point out failures of the Union government.