BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who had frequent run-ins with Congress leader Sashi Tharoor in the past, has in a letter to the Speaker demanded that the latter be disqualified as a Member of Parliament for using the term “Indian variant” for the India-dominant strain of Covid-19.
Tharoor, the chairman of the Standing Committee on IT, has made the panel “an extension of the Congress”, the BJP leader said in the letter.
In the past, Dubey and Tharoor have had public differences over issues like banning Chinese apps, the Facebook controversy over a report that alleged bias towards the BJP and resuming 4G services in Jammu & Kashmir.
In his letter, the BJP MP accused Tharoor of using in his tweets the phrase “Indian variant” despite his “rich diplomatic experience” when the WHO has also said the variant is called B.1.617.
“It is beyond my comprehension why an Indian MP would use language that is unscientific and derogatory towards Indians. When the Government of India has already written to all social media platforms to remove usage of this word, it is embarrassing to note that a member of our esteemed Lok Sabha uses such discourse to shame the country and its people,” Dubey said.
Accusing Tharoor of pleasing his “political masters”, he said, “It is a dangerous trend for our democracy for allowing such mischievous elements to continue to serve our Parliament as a Chairperson of a Parliamentary Committee.”
The BJP MP also alleged that the Congress MP is “more concerned about his party’s and Rahul Gandhi’s agenda” than the nation.
He said Tharoor is also helping microblogging platform Twitter against the government over the issue of the toolkit. While Congress is yet to react, TMC MP Mahua Moitra hit back tweeting, “Higher likelihood of @BJP MPs getting disqualified for fake MBA degrees & lying on affidavits than of Opposition MPs for twitter nomenclature of virus variants!”. Tharoor, who too has not commented on Dubey’s letter, simply retweeted Moitra’s comments.