By Sushil Kutty
When push comes to shove, there’s no beating LoP in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, the only muscular MP in Parliament who can stand up to the ‘56” ki Chaati’ though there are pictures of Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju flexing his muscles in a gym. But Rahul Gandhi’s push can be deadly to those in the way.
Like the two BJP MPs, Prakash Sarangi and Mukesh Rajput, both of whom landed at the ICU of the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, hardly 10 minutes’ drive from the new Parliament, after getting knocked out of contention allegedly by Rahul Gandhi at the ‘Makar Dwar’ of the New Parliament House, where a brawl broke out between ruling party MPs and the MPs of Opposition parties.
Pratap Sarangi was admitted to the ICU with a “head wound” that required stitches to stem the bleeding and Mukesh Rajput was “equally seriously” wounded. No one had imagined Rahul Gandhi carrying such a wallop in his biceps, clad in a blue t-shirt instead of the white that took his Bharat Jodo Yatra south-north and east-west.
The way the story goes, Sarangi went down in a heap of legs and arms as Mukesh Rajput took the brunt of Rahul Gandhi’s shove and slammed into Sarangi without even a “May I?” All this because Union Home Minister Amit Shah made a “fashion statement” and linked it to “Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar…”.
Amit Shah’s “fashion-statement” linking Constitution-stylist BR Ambedkar to God did not go down well with the Opposition, spearheaded by the Congress. Now there is a chorus clamouring for Amit Shah’s head and on Thursday morning, the ruckus and the din shifted “outdoors” after the Lok Sabha was adjourned till 2pm.
Outdoors, MPs climbed atop the ‘Makar Dwar’, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi also among them. LOP in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, who is 83, couldn’t resist making a statement of his own and he too complained of being “pushed”.
The evening before Amit Shah had held a presser, alleging that the Opposition had put up a “12 seconds clip” cut from his entire statement on Ambedkar, not playing the clip to the “full”, afraid that the rest of what he said about Ambedkar would have told the truth of how badly the Congress had treated Ambedkar, including the despicable manner in which Nehru dealt with Dr. BR Ambedkar.
The fact is, the Congress, failed to comprehend the import of Amit Shah’s statement in the Rajya Sabha, but the next morning it dawned on them this was a God-given opportunity to hit out at the BJP. Amit Shah had insulted both God in Heaven and God-on-Earth BR Ambedkar by reducing God to Ambedkar and by reducing Ambedkar to God!
Now, it is about how Amit Shah could speak of Ambedkar as if Ambedkar was less than God? For the Congress, this was unacceptable and Shah had broken the trance with his “fashion statement” linking Ambedkar to God. Amit Shah had crossed a Rubicon, the Lakshman Rekha.
But the Union Home Minister was not amused and nor was Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Before Amit Shah’s evening presser, Prime Minister Modi shot off “six ‘X’ posts” blasting the Congress. The next morning, the BJP was asking ‘X’ to post the “full clip” of Amit Shah’s reference to Ambedkar.
This time the BJP and the Modi government aren’t in the mood to give in to the “Opposition’s duplicity”, like during the election campaigning for the 2024 general elections. An FIR has been lodged against Rahul Gandhi for “pushing Sarangi and Mukesh Rajput” and causing them injury. The BJP and the Congress are also accusing each other of forcibly stopping each other’s MPs from entering Parliament.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju tore into Rahul Gandhi, asking, “How can he use force in Parliament? Under which law does he have the power to physically assault other MPs?” Rahul Gandhi holds a black belt in Aikido, a Japanese martial art and Rijiju wanted to know if Rahul had learned karate and kung fu, to beat other MPs?
“Parliament is not a wrestling arena,” Rijiju pronounced, demanding that Gandhi say “sorry”, but Rahul says it was he who was “pushed and shoved” by the BJP MPs blocking the main entry. The moral of the story: “Never mess with the man in a Burberry t-shirt” with biceps bulging. And if that isn’t a fashion-statement, linking BR Ambedkar to “fashion” is deadlier than sin! Also, not everybody gets a shove from a Rs 41,000 Burberry t-shirt! That is what’s called ‘a fashion statement.’ (IPA Service)
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