Opposition parties led by the Congress on Friday moved a privilege motion against External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the Rajya Sabha for allegedly misleading the Upper House over two issues — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lahore visit in 2015 and the Bandung Conference in Indonesia — the same year.
leaders of various political parties alleged that Swaraj “provided wrong information on the Bandung Asia Africa relations conference”. Swaraj’s speech at 60th Asian African Conference (also known as Bangdung Conference) is available on the Ministry of External Affairs website and the Congress has attached the same in its notice.
“We hereby give notice of our intention to move a privilege motion under Rule 188 of the Rules and Procedures and Conduct of Business on false and misleading statement given by Sushma Swaraj, Minister for External Affairs on August 3, 2017 during reply to Short Duration Discussion on ‘India’s Foreign Policy and Engagement with Strategic Partners’,” the notice said.
“We are shocked at the blatantly false and misleading statement given by the Minister for External Affairs on the floor of the House wherein the matter was discussed after giving due notice of
short duration discussion which the Minister was also very keen to discuss and reply to. It is
also a matter of shame that during the reply, the Minister said that Bangdung Conference is different from Asian African Conference whereas the fact is that Asian African Conference is popularly known as Bangdung Conference,”
the privilege motion filed before RS Secretary General said.
The Government and the Opposition engaged in a verbal duel in the Rajya Sabha over India’s statement at the Bandung Conference. Senior Congress member Anand Sharma alleged that first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s name was omitted from the address delivered by Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh at the conference.
TMC member Derek O’Brien supported Sharma in attacking the Government. However, Swaraj said India didn’t address the Bandung Conference. She said the speech which Sharma
was referring to was delivered at another Afro-Asian Conference held separately. “These were two different conferences,” she maintained. Pandit Nehru was one of
the founder members of
the Bandung Conference in 1955.
The second privilege is for allegedly “misinforming the House on PM Modi’s 2015 lahore visit, claiming that there was no terror incident after that”.
The Opposition, however, said that the Pathankot terror attack happened immediately after Modi’s visit and there were five other terror-related incidents after that too. Sharma also demanded to know why Modi made that visit to Pakistan and “why, till date, nobody knows the details of the meeting”.