From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankar on Monday decided to call a meeting of the floor leaders on Tuesday to nail the members making wild allegations in the House to decide a mechanism to force authenticity by the members.
He took the decision when AAP member Sanjay Singh alleged misuse of the Enforcement Directorate in raids on 3,000 political leaders but there were only 23 convictions, i.e. less than 0.5 per cent.
Amid strong protest by the ruling benches, the chairman ruled that the facts should be substantiated like the legally admissible data. Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge stood in support of Sanjay Singh, noting that the members refer to replies by the government or reports by the journalists during zero hour. He said Prime Minister Modi had promised to deposit Rs 15 lakh in every person’s bank accounts in 2014 and its authenticity can be determined by the words (jabaan) of the Prime Minister.
While leader of House and Minister Piyush Goyal challenged the claim of 3,000 political raids by the ED as “erroneous” and moreover the law does not give immunity to the political leaders as implied in the mention, Sanjay Singh contested him saying 3,000 ED raids were not his concoction or imagination but a reply to Priyanka Chaturvedi by the government in the House.
The Chairman said his concern was that the Rajya Sabha platform should not be used to make allegations which the members cannot substantiate. He said he would sit with the leaders of all parties to examine the issue on how the members ought to substantiate in the House itself the charges they make.
