Congress gives privilege motion against Smriti Irani in Lok Sabha

Congress leaders KC Venugopal and Ranjeet Ranjan on Tuesday gave the privilege motion against Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani in the Lok Sabha as party vice president Rahul Gandhi is expected to address the House today.

The Congress gave notice for a privilege motion against Irani yesterday and created a ruckus in the Lok Sabha for a short while before Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stood to present the General Budget 2016-17.

The grand old party claimed earlier that Irani's arrogance and blatant lies in Parliament during the discussion on Hyderabad University scholar Rohith Vemula forced them to move the privilege motion against her.

"What Smriti Irani said in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were blatant lies and this hasn't been claimed by the Opposition, but by the people who knew Rohith; his family members and his University colleagues. Why does she have so much arrogance? Irani could have accepted that she got the facts wrong and the matter would have been over. But just because they are in power, they have arrogance and this arrogance will let them down," Congress leader PL Punia told ANI.

Irani in her speech in Parliament had said there was no question of an apology from her. She pointed out that according to a report submitted to the Telangana High Court, the police had reached Rohith's hostel at 7:20 pm when they found the body.

"The police said that when they reached the hostel, they found the room open and the dead body was on the table. A hand written suicide note was found. The suicide note that was left behind does not blame anyone," she said.

"This is not my submission. This is what the police said. No one allowed a doctor near this child, to revive this child. Instead, his body was used as a political tool. No police was allowed till 6:30 am the following morning. Who tried to help this child?" she asked.