E-Paper
PM Modi’s remarks in RS on Congress leader BK Hariprasad expunged
Modi made the comment about BK Hariprasad, the Opposition candidate, while congratulating Harivansh Narayan Singh, the NDA candidate who won Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson election on Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments in Rajya Sabha on Congress leader BK Hariprasad were removed from records on Friday.
Modi made the comment while congratulating Harivansh Narayan Singh, the NDA candidate who won the Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson election on Thursday.
Prime Minister said, “He (Singh) has been blessed with the talent of writing. He was also a favourite of former PM Chandra Shekhar ji...now, we are all Hari bharose” (now we all depend on him).
Then he went on to make a comment about Hariprasad, which has now been expunged.
Congress’s BK Hariprasad was pitted as the Opposition candidate against Singh.
Responding to PM Modi’s remark, BK Hariprasad said, “The Prime Minister belittled the dignity of the chair and brought down the dignity of the House.”
The opposition candidate, Hariprasad, was a last-minute pick after the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) decided not to put up a candidate on Tuesday. The NCP’s decision, in turn, was motivated by Sharad Pawar’s call to Patnaik, who made it clear to the former that the BJD would support the NDA candidate.
The electoral outcome reflected the hard political competition and cold arithmetic that marks the landscape ahead of elections in key states later this year and the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, as well as the continued edge the Narendra Modi-led NDA enjoys over an opposition that’s struggling to unite.
