With Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal saying she will be moving a privilege motion against two Congress leaders for allegedly calling her ‘kachra’ (garbage), Congress leader Renuka Chowdary on Saturday said she and her party have seen many “udta” Harsimrat Kaurs and this was just “cheap political drama for two minutes of fame”.
“I am shivering in fright. I am supposed to be terrified by this (Harsimrat’s) threat.
We have seen many such Harsimarat Kaurs before, and, if she has really believed in parliamentary democracy, her statement won’t be in this mess.
If she wants, I will help her; I will take her to the chairperson and guide her as to how to call about a privilege motion.
It was just a cheap political drama for two minutes of fame,” Chowdary, who is the Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh, told ANI.
Taking strong exception to Harsimrat Kaur’s allegations that Renuka Chowdary is a “habitual offender”, the latter said, “‘Achha’, now she will attract legal sections, and since she has said this on national television that I am habitual offender, now it is her responsibility to prove that I have used this in my 28 years in Parliament.
“I have never been asked to withdraw one word.
I have fought ferociously; I have been angry, but I have never used an intemperate word and I never had to take anything off record because of what I have said.”
In a blistering attack on the Shiromani Akali Dal MP and the daughter-in law of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Chowdary said, “She has to define what a habitual offender is? Its in English, so I hope she understands what a habitual offender would mean, because the people of Punjab see her and her government as habitual offenders, and that’s why drugs in the area are so critical,” said the Congress leader.
“They are losing in Punjab and that is why this desperation, this political manipulation and this public drama that she is doing.
This is in cahoots with the BJP to cover up what Dayashankarji had said the other day about a senior leader.”
“They were put on the back foot and put on the defensive.
So, this is what they take today and victims are my five crore people of Andhra.
We were all fighting for the Special Category Bill, which was a private member bill.
And this lady, I have been watching her, she has been taking about how she is a minority community person and that she is a woman.
What does that make us? She has no idea what I belong to and she has to now answer to five crores Andhras,” said Chowdary, whose party was extremely keen on moving a private member’s bill in Parliament.
“We never interrupt to take away the privilege of a private member who has brought his bill with great difficulty.
We get the opportunity and the chance, and she has removed that by this political drama and that’s what it was,” she asked.
Maintaining that nothing is stopping Harsimarat Kaur from going to the Chairperson, Renuka Chowdary said, “If she was so strongly concerned about security (AAP leader Bhagwant Maan’s video), she again magnifying that whole drama.
She could have gone and raised it in the Lok Sabha, where is the compulsion for her to come to the Rajya Sabha and raise this.
She could have gone to the Chairman directly and given the complaint, go ahead and do it.”
Badal alleged that Jairam Ramesh and Chowdhury did not allow her to speak in the Upper House when she put up the matter of Parliament’s security after Aam Aadmi Party MP Bhagwant Mann uploaded a live video of the parliament premises on Facebook on Thursday.
When asked for her opinion on the BJP holding protest all over Uttar Pradesh, saying “the BJP is in the field to save the daughter”, she responded there is nothing to react.
“People are going to judge them and they have paid a very big price.
They have just crowned Kumari Mayawatiji as the Chief Minister of U.P. They know that. ‘Haath Jal gaye’ (fingers are burnt).
So, now the time is to retrieve the ground. ‘Mehanga pada hai sauda.’”
ANI