Renuka Chowdhury moves privilege motion against Rijiju for Facebook video

PM Modi, on hearing the Congress MP laugh during his speech in the lower house on Wednesday, had said that he had last heard such laughter in the serial 'Ramayana'

Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury moved a privilege motion in Rajya Sabha on Friday against Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju for posting a video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi mocking her laughter in the Rajya Sabha.

Rijiju had captioned the tweet as "Despite such vexatious laugh by Renuka Chaudhary ji PM Narendra Modi ji didn't get irritated."

 

Despite such vexatious laugh by Renuka Chaudhary ji PM Narendra Modi ji didn't get irritated. pic.twitter.com/pc5TGOYhZV

— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) February 8, 2018

 

Expressing ire over the post, Renuka had told media, "This is degrading to a woman and highly objectionable. I am going to move a privilege motion."

Prime Minister Modi, on hearing the Congress MP laugh during his speech in the lower house on Wednesday, had said that he had last heard such laughter in the serial 'Ramayana.'

The following day, Rajya Sabha was adjourned for an hour over Prime Minister Modi's remarks.

Congres' reaction

The Congress on Thursday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "lowering the dignity of his office" with his remarks in Parliament regarding party MP Renuka Chowdhury and demanded his apology.

Talking to reporters here, Congress leader Anand Sharma said Modi had distorted history to mislead the people and used a language no Prime Minister had done before.

"We condemn the language, false accusations, defamatory words, distortion and insult of history that the Prime Minister did in Parliament yesterday (Wednesday)," Sharma said.

He alleged Modi had shown disrespect to three past Prime Ministers belonging to the Congress.

Referring to Modi's remarks following loud laughter by Chowdhury in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress leader said: "Merely, a woman parliamentarian was laughing at his claims... what was alluded to (by Modi) is shameful."

"We condemn it. He should apologise. One of his Ministers has in social media posted something which is highly objectionable and the Prime Minister is silent," Sharma said.

Another party spokesperson Sushmita Dev also demanded an apology from Modi.

Dev said in a statement that she was shocked "at the utterly sexist and downright distasteful comment" by Modi.

"It belittles the PM's office and amounts to insult to each and every woman in the country. To mock her in this manner is extremely unfortunate and it evokes the same emotion in me when someone makes a disrespectful comment to a woman on the street," Dev said.