Lok Sabha adjourned till 4 pm amid furore over Chowdhury's 'rashtrapatni' remark on Prez

Lok Sabha adjourned till 4 pm amid furore over Chowdhury's 'rashtrapatni' remark on Prez

Lok Sabha adjourned till 4 pm amid furore over Chowdhury's 'rashtrapatni' remark on Prez

New Delhi : Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's remark on President Droupadi Murmu led to protests in Parliament on Thursday.

Accusing Congress president Sonia Gandhi of sanctioning the humiliation of the President, Union minister Smriti Irani asked the Congress to apologise to the nation.

“Sonia Gandhi, you sanctioned the humiliation of Droupadi Murmu. Sonia ji sanctioned humiliation of a woman in the highest constitutional post," a visibly upset Irani thundered in the Lok Sabha.

Gandhi, who was present in the House before it was adjourned, said that outside the house, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had “already apologised”.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched an all-out attack on the Congress in the Rajya Sabha.

Sitharaman said, “Congress president Sonia Gandhi must apologise to the nation for “allowing” Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to refer to President Droupadi Murmu as ‘Rashtrapatni’. She also alleged that it wasn’t a slip of tongue but ‘a deliberate act to insult the President’.”

Sitharaman said the Congress president, a woman herself, must “apologise to the nation and the President, a self-made woman”.

Meanwhile, Chowdhury said his remark was a slip of tongue.

Describing his remarks as “a one-off mistake and slip of tongue”, Chowdhury said the BJP is making a mountain out of a molehill as he never intended to show even the remotest disrespect to the head of the state.

In a video released after the BJP disrupted proceedings in both Houses, the Congress leader said, “I used the remark once inadvertently. I never meant disrespect to the President. We know the President is very respectable notwithstanding the community or religion she belongs to. I only said it once by mistake,” Adhir said, adding, “Hang me if you want.”

“There is no question of an apology. It was a mistake. We had been trying to march towards the Rashtrapati Bhavan to air our grievances and I was talking to media…Some mediapersons recorded my inadvertent remark. By the time I could tell them it was a mistake they had aired it,” he said.

The Congress said India’s President, be it a Brahmin, a Muslim or a tribal, is respectable to us.

“I said it was a mistake. Some ruling party members are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. This is unfortunate. They should see the video. Only once did I make a mistake. Hang me if you want. Why should I apologise to the BJP?” he asked.

In his video message, he said. “Yesterday, when we were holding a protest at Vijay Chowk, journalists asked where we wanted to go. I mistakenly said, ‘Rashtrapatni’, only once by mistake. I urged the journalists not to show my video where I committed a mistake. The BJP is creating a row over it,” he said.

Adhir said the BJP is short of issues and is now finding ‘masala’ against the Congress. “The issue has been blown out of proportion,” he said.