Congress sees a plot in cash row in Upper House

Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar’s dramatic announcement of a “wad of currency notes” being found during a routine “anti-sabotage check” at the seat allotted to senior Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Upper House has triggered a fresh confrontation between the Centre and the Opposition in Parliament.

The recovery of the notes on Thursday (December 5) evening, now under investigation, has triggered a barrage of stinging but equally bizarre allegations from the Treasury Benches directed at the Opposition in general and the Congress party, in particular. Singhvi has asserted that the cash did not belong to him and echoed his party’s support for a “thorough investigation”.

‘Bid to deflect attention’

The Congress and its allies in the INDIA bloc view the development as a “conspiracy” by the Centre to “deflect attention” away from the many issues on which the Opposition has been seeking answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government.

Also read: Ruckus in Rajya Sabha over ‘wad of notes’ found at Abhishek Singhvi’s seat

Both Houses were adjourned till Monday, indicating that the uneasy truce the Centre and the Opposition had signed off on just four days back to let Parliament function is unlikely to hold for much longer. The INDIA bloc believes that the cash recovery in Rajya Sabha and the Centre’s robust attacks on the Opposition over it cannot be viewed in isolation.

Congress’s Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore told The Federal that Friday’s happenings in the Upper House were part of a “chronology of events” to derail Parliament. Tagore’s senior colleague in the Rajya Sabha and Congress’ communications chief, Jairam Ramesh slammed the BJP’s “strategy” to not allow the House to function in a bid to “avoid embarrassment to the Prime Minister and itself”.

Maligning Opposition?

A Rajya Sabha MP of the INDIA bloc said the proceedings in both Houses of Parliament for the past two days have “followed a clear pattern, with the unfortunate complicity of the main presiding officers (RS Chairman Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla), of frivolous issues, unsubstantiated allegations and disturbing conjectures being raised with a deliberate intent to trigger disruptions and adjournments and to malign the Opposition, in particular, the Congress party.”

Congress’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Pramod Tiwari told The Federal that it is “difficult to dismiss as mere coincidence” that issues being raised in both Houses of Parliament since Thursday “to dub the Opposition as anti-national” clashed with the Congress intensifying its protests against Modi on the ‘Adani issue’ and farmers from Uttar Pradesh and other adjoining states marching to Delhi in protest against the Centre.

Also read: BJP's allegations linking Congress to Soros trigger LS disruptions

“Yesterday, we saw the remarkable coincidence of BJP MPs (Sudhanshu Trivedi in the Rajya Sabha and Nishikant Dubey in the Lok Sabha) being called first by the Chair in both Houses to make their Zero Hour submission on exactly the same issue. The Chair in both Houses allowed these MPs to make very serious and absolutely baseless allegations against the Congress and the Opposition, which obviously triggered protests from our side and Parliament was promptly adjourned. Shortly after, a BJP MP (Sambit Patra) did a press conference and called the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha a ‘traitor of the highest order’ on the basis of the same baseless allegations (that Trivedi and Dubey had made),” Tiwari said.

The senior Congress MP added, “Today, in the Rajya Sabha, the manner in which the chairman cast very serious aspersions on the integrity of Abhishek Manu Singhvi, one of the most highly regarded lawyers of the country, and then how the entire Treasury side rose up to disrupt (proceedings) when the LoP (Kharge), while supporting the investigation, said Chair shouldn’t have named the MP until the investigation was over... the whole chronology of events raises suspicion”.

‘Disruptions benefit govt’

A non-Congress INDIA Bloc MP told The Federal, “The nature of the allegations, the reaction of the Treasury side, the role of the Chair; all of it raises doubts because it is so obvious that the disruption only benefit the government... the farmers have resumed their protests, the INDIA bloc is demanding answers on Modi’s crony capitalism and patronage to Adani... Manipur, targeting of Muslim’s places of worship, inflation, economy, air pollution in NCR but be it Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha, the Opposition is not being allowed to raise any of these issues while the BJP MPs are being allowed to make any kind of statement against the Opposition in the House under the protection of the Chair and the moment the Opposition protests, the House is adjourned... are we fools to not see a pattern in this”.

Also read: Congress reconstitutes law department, appoints Singhvi as chairman

Sources said the Congress and some of its allies have registered a “strong protest” with the Rajya Sabha Chairman on the way Singhvi’s name was “slandered without any evidence” and over the “condemnable statements” made against the Congress and the wider Opposition by senior ministers of the Modi government on the floor of the House in the immediate aftermath of the cash row. Sources said the Congress was particularly critical of the way Union minister Piyush Goyal claimed in the House that “today it is cash, tomorrow it could be something else (recovered from the opposition benches)” and how the “entire Opposition was accused without any evidence of working with foreign entities to destabilise the country”.

The Congress, sources said, has told the Rajya Sabha chairman that while they “fully support any kind of investigation, even a JPC probe” into the cash row.