In an apparent move to put Congress on the backfoot on the Ishrat Jahan encounter controversy, the ruling BJP raised the issue in the lok Sabha on Monday accusing former Home Minister P Chidambaram of playing with national security by seeking to dub a terrorist as a martyr.
Facing fire on the issue for the last few days, Chidambaram reacted saying the affidavit controversy associated with the encounter was raised to “divert attention” from the real issue. In his tweet message, the Congress leader, who was Home Minister during UPA regime, said the main issue was whether the Ishrat Jahan encounter was “false” or not.
“The affidavit controversy is only to divert attention from the real issue in the Ishrat Jahan case. Real issue is whether there was fake encounter & whether four people already in custody were killed in that fake encounter,” the tweet said. The BJP has decided to raise the issue of his tweets in the Parliament on Tuesday.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Kirit Somaiya sought to know whether an official committee which went into the disappearance of four documents in the Ishrat Jahan issue has submitted its report.
He alleged that the former Home Minister had dubbed Ishrat as a terrorist in the first affidavit but changed it in the second affidavit. Somaiya also took the name of another Home Minister in the UPA Tenure but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan disallowed the names to be taken in the House.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju charged Chidambaram with making a “delirious attempt to escape” in the Ishrat Jahan controversy by saying an Under Secretary had signed the second affidavit contradicting an earlier submission that the 19-year-old girl, killed in an alleged fake encounter, was an lashkar-e-Tayyaba(leT) activist.
He was reacting to Chidambaram’s comments on the controversy that “the Home Minister does not sign affidavits. It is signed by an Under Secretary.” Rijiju said national security compromised is too serious an issue to be diverted. Congress cannot divert it with an aberrant excuse. “For how long will Congress protect a terroristIJ” Rijiju asked.
Reacting to Congress objection that the issue cannot be raised as it was sub judice, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said rules and regulations have to be followed for taking up any issue in Parliament and the Opposition should be aware of it.
“But the question is if somebody wants to discuss an issue (Ishrat Jahan) which is before the Supreme Court; the procedure, the rules and regulation, the Speaker seems to have made very clear. So, I do not think, the opposition which have been in power for 50 years, they must be aware of the rules and regulations,” he said.
Targeting Congress, Naidu said, “With regard to Ishrat Jahan issue, some shocking revelations have come, affidavits have been filed and again it has been doctored and changed also and that is now not contested by the former Home Minister (P Chidambaram).”
He, however, said the Speaker is the final authority on deciding about allowing discussion on Ishrat Jahan issue. “Our people also have given some notices about Ishrat Jahan issue. If the opposition also wants to discuss Ishrat Jahan issue, there should not be any problem whatsoever. But it all depends upon the Speaker,” he said.