The row over Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy not being invited to the function to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi escalated on Monday with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi accusing him of “insulting” people of the State even as his party in Parliament termed it “political vendetta”. But while the chief of the organiser of the function SNDP denied it was he who was responsible for deletion of Chandy’s name and not the BJP leadership. In lok Sabha Home Minister Rajnath Singh too iterated the same line while rejecting the “unfounded and baseless” charge.
Singh said the cancellation was by SNDP due to its “internal row” and the Government had nothing to do with it. Chandy termed it a “painful experience”.
Chandy in a Facebook post said the decision to keep him out was a “painful experience” and an “insult” to people of the state. But SNDP chief V Natesan said it was he who had deleted Chandy’s name from the list of invitees.
Congress MP KC Venugopal raised the issue during the Zero Hour soon after the House reassembled noon alleging that at the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) dropped Chandy) from a function of SNDP, a social organisation, and that “the entire State is shocked and agitating.”
“The PMO or the Prime Minister has a hand in this. Humiliating the Chief Minister is humiliation of Kerala. The constitutional position is being used for political vendetta,” Venugopal said.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh dismissed the charge as “baseless” and said the decision to withdraw the invite to Chandy for the event in Kerala Tuesday was taken by SNDP, a social organisation which is hosting it, due to its “internal row” and the Government had nothing to do with it.
The Speaker was forced to adjourn the House earlier due to the uproar over the issue, along with the protests by AAP members against demolition drive in the national Capital.
Intervening after the Congress MP and Rajnath had spoken, Minister of State for Parliamentary affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy said a letter by Kerala Chief Minister sent to PMO had said that he would not be available for the event. Rudy said there was no intervention from the PMO and Government has no role in it and there was “no vendetta”.
Citing the programme schedule sent to the PMO by the State’s protocol department, Rudy said it included the name of Chandy who was to preside over the function while Modi was to unveil the statue of former State Chief Minister R Shankar.
“This is against cooperative fedralism. The Prime Minister like always is keeping unjustifiable silence,” he said. Rejecting the charge as “unfounded and baseless”, the Home Minister said it was true that SNDP had first invited Chandy which led to some “internal row” within it and the organisation then adopted a “unanimous resolution” saying the Chief Minister should not come.
“Who is invited and who is not is a decision for the SNDP to take and the Government has nothing to do with it,” Rajnath said and insisted that his Government was all for “cooperative federalism”.
Rahul, who led a dharna of Congress MPs on outside Parliament, targeted Modi over the exclusion of Chandy and accused Centre of “insulting” people of Kerala.
Rahul alleged that the Prime Minister has “stopped our Chief Minister” from going to a function. “Chief Minister of Kerala represents the people of Kerala. Chief Minister of Kerala is the voice of the people of Kerala and the Prime Minister had insulted that voice. This is simply not acceptable to us,” Rahul said.
Deputy leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma raised the issue of exclusion of Chandy from the Prime Minister’s event. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley intervened to say that the matter pertained to a private organisation’s withdrawal of invitation and it should not be raised in the House. Rajya Sabha Vice Chairman PJ Kurien also asked the Congress members to fight the issue politically on the ground rather than in the House.
Sharma said that an OSD from the Prime Minister’s Office had called Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy stating that they had heard that he would not be presiding over the event.