Speaker of the Lok Sabha refers Danish Ali-Ramesh Bidhuri complaints to the privileges committee

Sources claimed on Thursday that Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has sent the Privileges Committee the objections made by a number of MPs over the matter involving BJP member Ramesh Bidhuri’s use of offensive language towards BSP’s Danish Ali.

While Nishikant Dubey of the BJP claimed that the BSP member “incited” the South Delhi MP while he was speaking in the House and urged the Chair to look into this as well, Ali and several other opposition MPs, including Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and DMK’s Kanimozhi, wrote to the Speaker asking for action against Bidhuri.

According to sources, Birla has forwarded all of these concerns to the BJP MP Sunil Kumar Singh-led Privileges Committee. On September 22, while addressing in the Lok Sabha on the achievement of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, Bidhuri made some disparaging statements against BSP member Danish Ali that were subsequently removed from records.

Rajnath Singh, the defense minister, expressed remorse for the behavior of the governing party MP when he was in the House. The Lok Sabha Speaker took “serious note” of Ali’s support from the opposition parties when a video of Bidhuri’s statements went viral and caused uproar, and he threatened him with “strict action” if his actions were to be repeated in the future.

He was also given a show-cause notice by the BJP. Ali referred to Bidhuri’s remarks as “hate speech” in a letter to the Speaker asking for the Privileges Committee to conduct an investigation.

Nearly all opposition parties also wrote to Birla requesting that something be done about him. A few BJP lawmakers, notably Dubey, said that Ali incited Bidhuri by making very offensive comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While denouncing Bidhuri’s actions, Dubey requested the Speaker to also look into Ali’s behavior. The opinion was shared by other BJP members of parliament. Dubey praised the Speaker for sending the case to the committee in a post on X on Thursday.

“It was possible because the BJP has a majority in the Lok Sabha,” he claimed, citing a number of prior occurrences to support his claim that no committee was set up to look into these matters and that no one was punished.

In this regard, Dubey said that RJD-JD(U)-Congress members got into a brawl in 2006 using shoes and microphones, Sonia Gandhi was involved in an incident in 2012, and there was disturbance and injuries to lawmakers in 2014 during the establishment of Telangana as a separate state.