Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi  |  Photo Credit: ANI
New Delhi: Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Saturday hit out at Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra for speaking in the House “with the mindset to defame the Jain community and their culture”. The lawmaker was referring to recent comments made by the Krishnanagar MP as she accused the Narendra Modi-led government of ‘fearing an India which is comfortable in its own skin”.
“…you fear an India where a Jain boy can hide from home and enjoy a kathi kebab on a street cart in Ahmedabad. So what do you do? You forbid non-vegetarian street food in Gujarat’s municipalities,” Moitra had alleged during her recent address. The remarks have since prompted outrage from several quarters, with many demanding an apology from the TMC leader. On Saturday afternoon, hashtags calling for Moitra to apologise also began trending on Twitter.
“Senior leaders of Congress were sitting in the Parliament, the secular syndicate was sitting there too. They were silent. Members of our party objected. We will meet the Speaker (Om Birla) and speak with him, action should be taken as per the rules,” Naqvi added.
Earlier this week, Moitra had tussled with the Lok Sabha Speaker after allegedly being stopped from finishing her address and being asked to calm down and speak with “less anger”. MP Rama Devi had presided over the Lok Sabha proceedings on Thursday in regular Speaker Om Birla’s absence.
“LS Speaker had alloted at least 13 minutes to me, when confronted in his chamber he claimed he was not in chair hence cant be blamed. When further cornered he said “It was my greatness that I even allowed you 13 minutes in 1st place.” Unbelievable,” she had tweeted.
Participating in the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address had claimed on Thursday that the government wanted to alter history, is “fearful of the future” and “mistrusts the present”. She also referred to the government’s recent announcement of installing a statue of Subhash Chandra Bose beneath the canopy at India Gate and asked if the iconic leader would have approved of the Dharma Sansad in which hate speeches were made.
She highlighted several human index reports which put India at a lower position and said that the government feared a future where it might not be able to arm-twist government officials to conduct raids on opposition leaders. “That is why you need to extend the tenures of CBI and ED chiefs depending on how they do your bidding. You fear a future where bureaucrats in a state cannot be bullied by the Centre, so you amend the IAS cadre rules. This fear of irrelevance in the future makes you behave the way you do. You are not content with just our vote, you want to get inside our heads, inside our homes, to tell us what to eat, what to wear, who to love. But your fear alone cannot keep the future at bay,” she said.